Simple
by Osidiano
Summary: To the Winter Soldier, there are three kinds of people in the world: superiors, mission support, and targets. He lacks the context to understand things like friendship. So what he sees in the Smithsonian exhibit and what little he remembers or feels about his past, he interprets in that light. He thinks that Steve must have been his handler during WWII. Cue misunderstandings.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This is my first fic for the CA/MCU fandom, and is an unbeta'd prompt fill for the capkink meme. For the most part, I don't know where I'm going with this; I'm just stringing scenes together and BS'ing like the pro that I am. This fic contains an unreliable narrator, explicit language, A LOT of graphic violence and descriptions of past torture/abuse, objectification/dehumanization, a very robust gunkink, and too much military jargon. Please consider that as a blanket warning. I will try to tag the appropriate chapters up here in the Author's Note section. There is more "Hurt" than "Comfort" up ahead, but I swear I do have funny things planned for later chapters.

* * *

 **Chapter 1.**

The longer he is out of cryostasis, the more confusing things appear to be. It was never confusing before the man on the bridge started calling the asset strange names, before he failed his mission and started malfunctioning. And he is malfunctioning now, he must be. His head hurts and there is a tight, painful feeling in his throat and abdomen despite him being uninjured. The metal arm, which is normally silent, is beginning to make clicking, whirring noises when the asset moves, alerting him to some mechanical malfunction.

He needs to go in for maintenance and debriefing, but he does not know where the extraction point was supposed to be. The drop site and laboratory where he woke up this time were empty when he made his way back to the bunker in Arlington. The room with his cryo-tank had been blown out and the rest of the equipment stripped. His radio and tracker were damaged when he jumped off the helicarrier into the Potomac, so he cannot call for his own extraction. He does not know how to access the Hydra communications network any other way.

Normally, his commander -

 _(his handler, his superior officer, the battle captain in charge of the mission; they keep changing the word for it every time he wakes up, but he likes_ 'captain' _best)_

\- would take care of this. His commander is supposed to make sure that they return to Hydra according to the time table. The handler can do basic maintenance and keep the asset combat ready for up to two weeks. A superior officer can give him orders to obey and missions to carry out. The captain makes everything simple and clear.

Which is why the asset ends up at the Smithsonian. There was a poster with a picture of the man on the bridge on it beneath a promise of answers.

He is standing in front of a picture of a small man who looks like the man on the bridge but is not the man on the bridge. This man is frail and familiar in a hazy, indistinct sort of way. The asset stands in front of this picture for thirty-seven minutes, memorizing the angle of his bony shoulders and the defiant, proud way his chin is lifted in the photograph. This man makes him think of things that the asset has no reason to know, like the smooth feel of chalk smudged on his wrists when slender fingers pull him back -

 _(from what?)_

\- the smell of buttered popcorn and the salty tang of the Lower Bay off the south pier -

 _(was there a mission set in Coney Island? When was he there?)_

\- the gasping sound a man makes when he is dying of asphyxiation. That is the only memory he does not question.

He moves on to another part of the exhibit. There is a wall of photographs of a man who looks like the asset. He pauses, brows furrowing in confusion. No, it is not a man who looks like him. He does not know how he knows this but he knows that those are pictures of himself, which means that he is not looking at a man at all. It is a weapon, an asset, smiling charmingly out of the frames. The text beside the display name the asset as 'Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes.' It says that he went by 'Bucky' -

 _("Bucky?")_

 _("Who the hell is 'Bucky?'")_

\- and that he served under someone named Captain America.

His last target. The man on the bridge -

 _("But I knew him.")_

Of course. Things are clicking into place finally, and the smoke is clearing. He knew that the last mission had been a captain, but had not been able to place its importance before now. The asset relaxes, his features smoothing back out. Of course. In the '40s, Hydra was still calling them battle captains. They were not called handlers until the '60s and the '70s. The captain is making things simple again. The Howling Commandos had been an elite team, according to the exhibit. He has worked in teams many times. The text beside the display says that he was Captain America's sniper. One of his assets. His weapon.

The man on the bridge was his handler before the current commander. That was why it was so difficult to eliminate him.

He goes back to the wall dedicated to Sgt. Barnes.

The asset in the pictures looks. . . He does not know the word for it. The asset is smiling in these, and he does not remember smiling before. He is different in the older pictures, and in one, he spots the small man with him. Was this his handler before Captain America?

He leans in and checks the number next to the photograph with the text below. It tells him that the small man is named Steve Rogers. The asset nods a little to himself. Yes. That sounds familiar, fits with the earlier thoughts or memories, the flashes of colors and sounds and smells. The small man is Steve Rogers, who must have been his first handler until -

 _(he's being yelled at and told he's stupid he's a jerk he better just go and pack his damn shit up before his train leaves and there's a door slamming and he knows Stevie is pretending not to cry on the other side)_

\- until he was transferred to Captain America's Howling Commandos.

His vision feels distorted, and he feels a wetness on his cheek. The asset wipes his right hand, the flesh hand, across his face, squeezing his eyes shut. What happened? He shakes his head and tries to swallow. The action hurts. Maybe the captain knows why he was transferred. He walks out of the exhibit quickly, head down past the security cameras at the entrance.

He tries to remember how or when he was assigned to Captain America. Why did he not stay with Steve Rogers? Did he fail a mission then as well? Is that why Steve Rogers was upset with him? A cold feeling settles in his chest at the thought, but it seems plausible. If he was not a good weapon when he was assigned to Steve Rogers, Hydra would have given him to a new handler. He would have been -

 _(strapped to a table in a dimly lit room experimented on tortured screaming nonononono)_

\- reprogrammed and given a new set of missions and targets in a new place.

That must have been what happened, the asset reasons as he walks away from the Mall, headed east. That was why he went to Europe the first time, and he does not know how he knows that but he does and so he does not question it. He was assigned as Captain America's sniper while in Europe. And then he did something wrong and was reassigned again. The asset frowns. He does not remember the next set of handlers until his mind gets to Commander Pierce -

 _(who appears to him at a variety of ages, and at first reminds him of the man on the bridge until he grows too old and no longer does)_

\- and Commander Rumlow, who the asset believes is new but has little memory to back that belief.

The asset stops at a street corner. Commanders Pierce and Rumlow had hurt him. He does not remember the details, but he knows that he could not fight back because they were the superior officers. Did Captain America ever hurt him? They fought on the bridge and the helicarrier, and he was hurt in those fights but he does not have any memories or distrust towards the captain. The captain had recognized him as having been his subordinate and refused to hurt him after that.

They were with one another 'til the end of the line.

He does not know what those words mean. The asset thinks that they are a code from his first handler, perhaps, or some kind of trigger to activate certain programming. He knows that there are triggers programmed for complex behaviors as part of his Hydra training. All the operatives have triggers. If Captain America knows them, then he must also be Hydra, and he thinks that he probably knew Steve Rogers.

This thought reassures the asset. If he reports to Captain America, then he can be reassigned from Commander Rumlow back to the captain. He will be given a new mission once Hydra realizes that they made a mistake in targets; the asset was not supposed to kill Captain America. He had never before been given a mission to eliminate a prior handler, why would they start now? No, no, it makes more sense that there was a mistake. Faulty intelligence, perhaps, or part of some larger strategy involving covers and double agents and SHIELD, part of something complicated.

The captain, he thinks, will make it simple again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.**

The asset gets as far as the Washington Monument before his sure steps falter and he has to stop again. He has no idea how to find the captain, he realizes. Finding targets was a mission support function, and he does not have access to the network. People continue to walk past him on the pavement in front of the tower; someone jostles him, but he does not look up when they snap at him aggressively. He must look unassuming, non-threatening, he thinks. The hoodie covering his combat jacket and metal arm was a good choice for blending in.

A frown tugs the corner of the asset's lips down. He had left the captain on the bank of the Potomac, but that was three days ago. Surely Hydra Command would have picked him up by now and taken the captain back to the nearest base. They would have done it quickly, without causing a scene. Hydra was efficient. The asset begins to walk, following the crowd. He did not know what else to do.

He was not used to working alone. The asset was always deployed with a handler, a commander, someone on the other end of his leash. He was always connected to Command, and the feeling of being left entirely to his own devices made him feel cold like -

 _(snow seeping up through his jacket too numb to even shiver and blood freezing on his neck and his face and he couldn't feel his arm and it was too bright in the center of his vision and black black black all around the edges as he heard a train rattle far away down the tracks above)_

\- he had just been woken up from cryostasis. He tightens his jaw and keeps walking.

There is a man in a blue suit reading a newspaper at a bus stop, and the front page draws the asset's attention. The picture is of the captain, blurry and slightly out of focus, and the man with the wings beside him. It looks like it was taken after they fought on the bridge. He does not bother to read the headline, but he does stop to scan the caption; after the museum, he has learned that the captions will tell him more than the exhibit title. The caption names the man with the wings as 'former Air Force pararescueman, Sam Wilson.' He pauses, uncertain for a moment before he approaches the man at the bus stop, who looks up when the asset stops just in front of him.

"Can I help you?" the man asks, brows raised in an unreadable expression. The asset says nothing, just gestures to the paper. There is a moment of hesitation before the seated man removes the front page and hands it to him wordlessly. The asset scans the rest of the article.

It says that Sam Wilson works at the VA hospital on Irving Street.

The asset takes a small, huffed breath of relief before he hands the paper back to the man. It does not say anything about the captain's whereabouts, but if the asset can locate the captain's support personnel or the base that they had been operating out of, then he will be that much closer to finding the captain.

"How do I get to Irving Street?" he asks the man in the suit, his voice rough from lack of use, mouth dry and tongue feeling heavy as the words leave him. He wonders if the man in the suit is Hydra. Hydra is everywhere. It would make sense if the people who assisted him were there as part of the mission, part of the complex plan that he was not meant to understand. He does not need to understand in order to follow orders.

The man complies, and gives him directions. The asset nods once before walking away. He heads north, away from the river, and back the way that he came. It is not far to the VA hospital, which is still packed and busy treating people who were injured in the fall of the Triskelion and the helicarriers. He enters the building through the ER, then ducks into the stairwell and heads up. The asset is looking for a superior officer, for someone who looks like the base commander that he can question about Sam Wilson and the captain's location. Most of the personnel he walks past look like technicians, with their clean scrubs and stethoscopes, their clipboards and white coats.

It is a very good cover, this Hydra base posing as a hospital.

He finds another asset on the fifth floor behind a door that says 'No Unauthorized Access,' a man in a uniform wearing a badge that states that he is Hospital Security.

"Sir, you can't be in here," Hospital Security says, raising a hand to stop the asset from proceeding down the hallway. The asset stops, and looks Hospital Security over. His uniform leaves his vital organs vulnerable to attack. His offensive capacity appears limited to non-lethal; he has a taser and a retractable baton in holsters on his black utility belt. He has a radio.

"Where is Sam Wilson?" the asset asks, stopping as instructed. "Where is the captain?" Hospital Security reaches for his taser. The asset reaches out for the man's neck with his metal arm, the joints of the fingers clicking loudly as his hand tightens. Hospital Security's eyes widen, his hands scrabbling uselessly at the asset. "You will assist me."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3.**

Hospital Security does assist him, though he is bad at it, so the asset is left to assume that mission support was not his primary function. When he is done, he snaps the man's neck and leaves the body in the security office with the camera monitors. He has an address for the base of operations that Sam Wilson was using and directions in the front pocket of his hoodie, along with Hospital Security's taser. The asset keeps his head down as he exits the hospital. He walks with purpose, but it takes him two hours and six minutes to arrive at this new destination, partially because he got lost on the way.

The base looks more like a poorly done safehouse than anything else. He thinks that Sam Wilson should have used the fake hospital as his primary location. A frown tugs the corner of the asset's lips down and he glares at the offending building. The base is located in a quiet, unassuming residential neighborhood, which was odd for Hydra and had made it more difficult to locate. It was single-story and had a small, well kept front yard with an intact but low wooden fence. The door did not look reinforced and the asset did not believe that any of the large windows were bulletproof.

He paced around to the back, but it was similarly poorly constructed for defense. The backyard also had a wooden fence, and though it was twice the height of the one at the front, it had a latch entrance which was unlocked. He approached the back entrance, which had a flimsy screen door and then another, sturdier door with a glass window. The asset put his metal arm through the glass and unlocked the door to let himself inside.

It was quickly apparent to the asset that there was no cryo-tank and no chair in this base. The building also lacked a basement or secret compartments. There was no armory. No laboratory. All of the necessary equipment for repairing the asset was missing. There was not even anything that might help him reconnect with the Hydra network or locate the captain.

The asset sat down in the kitchen, his flesh and blood hand hanging down to grip one of the chair legs as he tapped his metal fingers on the wooden table. He did believe that the captain had used this base at some point; it belonged to his mission support personnel, after all. They must have simply emptied it during their last resupply. He chewed the inside of his cheek, still drumming his fingers. But the captain was not here now, and did not know that the asset was looking for him. He needed a new plan.

A motorcycle was pulling up to the base. He could hear it outside, the purr of the engine before it was killed. His fingers pause as he hears the voices, recognizing them each in turn, though their conversation is lost on him.

"-'m not riding bitch across the country." Sam Wilson. "We're gonna need a car."

The captain laughs as the front door opens. Something warm blooms in the asset's chest, like blood spreading out from a gunshot wound but it doesn't hurt and he hasn't been shot or injured in the last ten seconds. He is malfunctioning, but this new symptom seems to have no cause. The feeling spreads down his torso to pool comfortably in his gut, makes his breath unsteady and his right hand tense around the leg of the chair. If he lets go, he knows it will tremble and he will be unable to stop it.

"Is that what they call it now? 'Riding bitch?' That's terrible." They are separated by two rooms. He can hear them rustling in the entryway, setting down helmets and removing jackets. Sam Wilson huffs. "I don't have a car. Maybe you should get a bike, too."

This suggestion is met with a groan. Their footsteps are heavy on the wood floor as they move further inside the base.

The captain enters the kitchen first, head down to regard a file in his hands so at first he does not see the asset. There is a bruise still on his jaw from their fight, and a puffiness surrounding one eye from where he was hit. His movements are stiff like he is sore and his muscles don't want to cooperate. The asset holds his breath, tenses his jaw, waits. There is a feeling in the back of his mind like he should stand with his feet together and knees straight, his hands clenched at his seams until the man tells him to -

 _("Carry on, Sergeant," it is said with a laughing smile but there's no sound and everyone relaxes and his lips pull tight to return the gesture as a smirk but his mouth feels like ash and death and he wants to scream down the captain's throat and)_

\- sit back down. The asset doesn't move.

"Sam, do you need -" the captain begins, lifting his head to call back over one shoulder to his companion, but stops when he sees the asset. Neither of them says anything for what feels like a very long time. The asset has no idea how many minutes or hours or days pass as he stares at the man on the bridge with wide eyes. There is wind howling in his ears and ice rushing through his veins and his chest is hot and tight.

The file falls from the captain's hands. Papers spill out over the floor, charts and documents and photos sliding between them. The asset looks down. He recognizes himself in the photos, reprogrammed in laboratories or recovering in cryostasis. There are pictures of his shoulder after they amputated his arm, pre- and post-surgery shots of his left side from when they were reinforcing his ribs and spine and collarbone and attaching his metal prosthesis.

It calms him. His mouth twitches up at one corner, lopsided, relieved, for just a moment before the expression falls. The captain has been in touch with Hydra Command. He and his support personnel are looking into his care and maintenance, and if they have his file, then they must have already cleared the transfer.

"Bucky?" the captain whispers the name, hopeful and desperate, his pupils blown out from shock so that the asset can't even see the blue of his irises. He seems to be waiting for some kind of response. The asset drums his metal fingers on the table again, pleased behind his cold mask. He must remain focused. He must make his report.

"Yes, Captain?"

The captain takes a few uncertain steps forward, and sits down at the table across from the asset. "Buck, do you remember me?"

"Yes, sir," the asset replies. The captain makes a hard, choked sound in his throat that he tries to swallow. It is unpleasant and makes the warm feeling twist in his gut like a knife. This must be programming, he thinks. Perhaps old protocols can be activated by Hydra remotely. The asset has never changed handlers in the middle of a mission before, but it would make sense that they would have something prepared for this kind of contingency. He is not responding appropriately to the commander's question, and so he is being punished. The punishment is causing him discomfort and pain. But he doesn't know what he is supposed to say to make the captain stop looking at him like that. Maybe he needs more proof that he remembers. "I was your sniper from 1943 to 1945. We were members of the Howling Commandos. Following the destruction of a base in Europe, I was assigned to your unit by our superior officers. There was a colonel and an agent and a. . . a technician."

"Colonel Phillips," the captain supplies the name, nodding a little. "Agent Carter. The technician?"

The title must have been wrong. But the captain does not look like he is going to -

 _(not gonna cry you jerk lemme alone I don't even wanna talk to you Buck you're the worst)_

\- make that punishing sound again. It is important that he reports and receives repairs so that he can be reset for the captain. He wants to be reset for the captain, because while he does not know how he knows, he is certain that he used to be very good at supplying the appropriate responses and not being punished. It was why he preferred the captain over Commanders Rumlow and Pierce.

"The technician worked on weapons," the asset tells him. The captain smiles. That warm feeling in his chest is back, stronger now. It is. . . pleasant, he decides, especially when compared to that awful sound and the watery look in the captain's eyes. So not a malfunction, then. A reward for a correct response? It feels rewarding. He will try harder to make sure that he acts appropriately to elicit that response from the captain in the future.

"You remember Howard Stark?" the captain asks. The asset can neither confirm nor deny, though the name sounds familiar. The captain reaches across the table and takes the asset's metal hand in his. "It's okay, Buck. It'll come back. I'm just. . . I'm glad you're here."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4.**

They leave Washington D.C. for New York later that afternoon. Sam Wilson stays behind, saying that he will join them later; apparently, there are other members of their support team that he must assist first. The asset is instructed to wear a full helmet with a tinted visor to hide his face and sit behind the captain on the motorcycle. He is told to keep his metal hand tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie and to hold onto the captain with his other hand. They spend the next three hours weaving through traffic and driving north. The asset keeps his right arm wrapped around the captain, his thumb tucked into the waistband of his jeans and fingers gripping his belt.

The captain's back is strong and tense against him. Being close to the captain makes the asset feel warm and pleasant. He wonders if traveling by motorcycle is his reward for reporting in.

They stop at a gas station in New Jersey for fuel and resupply. The asset is allowed to remove his helmet, and the captain asks him if he is hungry. He doesn't understand the question, so he does not answer, because the punishment for no response is usually less painful than an incorrect response. But the captain does not punish him or push the subject. They share a bottle of water and the captain makes a phone call to Hydra Command before the asset has to put his helmet back on and they continue north.

New York is loud and messy and so much brighter than he remembers, which strikes him as an odd sentiment when he realizes that he doesn't actually remember it. This is a new city, foreign and strange, and he does not believe that he was here before. The captain seems to know it well, though, and the motorcycle weaves around taxis and delivery vehicles as they travel toward a massive tower in a part of the city still under reconstruction, the rubble cleared away but scaffolding still up on some of the other buildings and repairs underway.

The captain parks his motorcycle in a lot beneath the tower, and he and the asset get into an elevator. The asset is allowed to remove his helmet, and he holds it carefully with both hands and does not look at the captain as they ride up to the ninetieth floor. This must be where Hydra is based in New York, and they are finally going in for debriefing. He is. . . concerned. He worries that the captain will be blamed for how long it took the asset to be located and returned. He just wants to be reset and left in the captain's care.

When the door opens on the ninetieth floor, the captain puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a small, reassuring squeeze before stepping out of the elevator. The asset follows him silently down a short hallway into a semi-circular room with a wall-length window that looks out over the city. There is a stand alone counter on the far side with a full bar behind it, and door leading out onto a large balcony. A man -

 _(who makes him think of planes and machine oil, the smell of gunpowder and explosives, of cigarette smoke and dark laughter)_

\- with a goatee is standing at the bar, pouring drinks. He looks up with an unsurprised expression.

"Hey, just in time, Cap," the man at the bar says, and raises a rocks glass with amber liquid poured over two cubes of ice in a mock salute. The captain smiles, and walks towards him. The asset stays standing stiffly by the entrance, looking for the restraints and the chair. Perhaps they plan on doing the reset in another room. "You know that you could have called me sooner, like, before you destroyed Shield and a quarter of D.C."

"I figured you were busy," the captain replies, and picks up one of the other glasses. He and the man with the goatee clink them together before each taking a drink. "Or maybe it was payback for not calling about that thing with Aim and the Mandarin -"

"Totally different. Not the same, nope, not even a little bit, I had that completely under control the whole time," the man interrupts, shaking his head.

"You're too stubborn for your own good, Tony."

"Oh, you're one to talk," the man huffs. He looks over to where the asset is standing, regarding him with a kind of ruffled agitation, an annoyed bravado as though his hospitality was being incredibly put upon. "Your friend gonna join us?"

"Yeah," the captain half-turns from where he is leaning against the counter, and gestures for the asset to come closer. "Yeah, hey, Buck, come on."

The asset complies with the order, watching the man warily. He does not appear to be another commander like the captain, but they are too comfortable with one another for him to be the superior officer that they needed to report to. The asset believes that he must be another one of the captain's support personnel, though he cannot devise his function just yet. His nerves feel like coiled steel and he does not like this uncertainty. He wishes that these new Hydra bases were designed more like the old ones that he is familiar with.

"Bucky, this is Tony Stark. Tony, Bucky," the captain says by way of introduction. Tony Stark's mouth spreads wide in a grin as he seems to finally notice the asset's metal fingers clutching the motorcycle helmet, and he offers his own hand in the space between them over the counter. The asset looks down at it, trying to read the signal. He will need to use his left hand to respond in kind. He does so, and Tony Stark pulls it forward to inspect the joints and chrome plating with keen interest.

"Oh, Cap. Cap, you shouldn't have, it's not even my birthday. Come on, Tin Man, I need to get a better look at this. This is really something else," Tony Stark says it all very quickly, like the words are water that he can't stop from rushing out. The asset does not believe that 'Tin Man' was ever one of his call signs. He tenses visibly, flesh hand tightening on the helmet with such force that the visor cracks, but it goes unnoticed by Tony Stark. "Let me get you down to my lab and -"

"Tony, don't you dare -" the captain is straightening and putting a hand up on the asset's shoulder defensively, starting to pull him back.

 _My lab._ The asset relaxes, calmed. Of course. This Tony Stark is a technician, like Howard Stark in 1943. He is the man the captain has to assist him with the asset's maintenance. His lab must have all the tools necessary to repair and reset him. It is simple. It is going to be okay.

"Yes, sir," he says, and the captain must hear the relief in his voice because he looks between them with a confused expression. Tony Stark is still grinning like a mad man as he tugs the asset away from the bar towards what must be his laboratory.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5.**

The chair doesn't look right. He sits in it anyway, because the technician tells him to, but he feels uneasy until the captain takes his flesh hand, their fingers interlocking. It is a steadying kind of comfort. The captain has him, and is going to make sure that he is repaired and returned to a fully mission capable status. Tony Stark is gathering tools from around his laboratory, tossing things onto a metal cart to wheel close to the asset's left arm. The captain takes a seat on a stool on the other side, sitting very close to him. He must stay close so that he can hold the asset down when he invariably starts to thrash against the electricity during reset. The captain is very strong, and could hold him down if needed. The asset will try to be very still anyway, because he does not want to accidentally hurt the captain.

Tony Stark doesn't pull the familiar metal headset and needles out, though, and doesn't hook any electrodes up to his chest or give the asset a mouth guard to bite down on. He sits on another stool, and fiddles with the metal arm, asking the asset to flex the plating and listening to the whirring of gears and clicking where the metal doesn't slide as smoothly anymore. He runs his fingers along the scarred seam where it connects to the asset's shoulder, pressing here and there to check for range of sensation.

Maybe he needs to assess the full extent of the damage before the asset can be wiped. Perhaps the asset cannot be reset because he is broken. His breathing hitches, a tiny, barely audible sound, and his eyes widen in panic. But the captain is there.

"It's okay, Buck, I've got you," the captain says, and he runs the fingers of his free hand through the asset's hair. It catches because his hair is tangled and he hasn't brushed it, but the captain doesn't pull or tug it loose. He carefully works the knot out and does it again and again until the asset's breathing slows and goes back to normal, and then he keeps on doing it while the technician starts working on the release mechanism for the arm to remove it. The captain's voice is soft and gentle as he says, over and over again, "It's okay. I've got you. You're gonna be okay, Bucky; I won't let anything happen to you. You're safe here."

The arm spasms and jerks as Tony Stark pulls the plating loose to get at the wiring near the asset's shoulder joint. He clenches his jaw shut and wishes for the mouth guard, because his teeth are grinding together. The sensors in his metal arm are not the same as the nerves in his flesh arm, but it still hurts, a dull, slow agony like having his skin peeled back inch by inch.

"Huh."

"Can you fix it?" the captain asks, rubbing small circles into the asset's hand with his thumb. The technician nods and reaches for a tool on the cart, which he promptly sticks one end of into the opening he has created. The asset bites his tongue to keep from screaming. It burns, a hot stabbing pain that jolts through the joint into his collarbone, and he can smell molten metal and a bit of smoke where Tony Stark is soldering a damaged wire to reconnect a circuit. He squeezes the captain's hand hard enough that he can feel the bones creak in protest.

The captain leans his head in, presses his forehead against the asset's jaw, tells him it'll be over soon. He doesn't dare nod, doesn't so much as twitch, can't respond, because the asset isn't allowed to speak during maintenance unless directed to, and the captain hasn't asked him to say anything. The asset can tell that he is being good, _so good,_ for the captain because of the way the captain touches him and speaks to him. His behavior is being rewarded, and he is hungry for the captain's approval.

It comes as a surprise to him that he knows what hunger is. He supposes that this means he will be able to answer the captain if questioned now.

"This is. . . Where did you say he got this?" Tony Stark asks, but their conversation is interrupted by what must be the arrival of another technician, though the man seems to be standing somewhere outside of the asset's vision. He did not notice anyone else come in, and that thought terrifies him because it indicates that he is far more damaged than he previously believed.

"Sir, Miss Potts is enroute," the man's voice informs them. Neither the captain nor the technician are startled by the man's arrival; Tony Stark continues working, digging into the asset's arm to scrape something off a gear, and the captain simply pulls back and looks up toward the ceiling.

"Thanks, Jarvis," the captain says, and the asset wonders if perhaps this man - Jarvis - is not physically present but speaking through an intercom system. It would explain why he did not feel his presence earlier. The captain returns his focus to Tony Stark. "I don't know yet. Nat gave me some intel, but I haven't had a chance to really dig through it. I think the Russians had him at some point, but the arm could be either Red Room or Hydra."

Tony Stark looks up sharply, the tool jerking hard against one of the circuits. The asset's eyes water dangerously, but he manages to keep his breathing even, because he is well trained.

"Either Red Room or Hydra? What the hell aren't you telling me, Spangles? You just said you needed to get out of D.C. and could use some tech support. I thought you were going to ask me to troubleshoot your phone or some shit, to be honest."

The door to the laboratory slides open, and the captain and the technician go silent, tensions set aside as a woman enters. She is tall, with fair skin and long red-blonde hair that has been pulled back and secured in a tight, disciplined ponytail high on the back of her head. The ends are curled slightly at her shoulders. She is wearing a white sleeveless blouse and a black pencil skirt, and her heels make a distinct sound when she walks that commands attention. The captain releases the asset's hand when she arrives and stands, and Tony Stark smiles at her with a soft expression.

"Miss Potts," the captain says.

"Hey, Pepper," the technician offers with a small wave as he removes the tool from the asset's arm and sets it back down on the metal cart. He wonders if he is also supposed to stand. She gives the asset a concerned once over with her eyes, her mouth a tight line and her brow furrowing slightly before she looks back to the men.

"Steve, I didn't know you would be here," the woman replies, and walks towards the captain, who puts his arms around her shoulders for a brief embrace. She presses her lips to his cheek and then they part. "What's going on?"

"Capsicle's Borg buddy was having some mechanical issues and I told him he could stop by for a check-up," the technician answers. The captain rolls his eyes.

"We needed to get out of D.C. I'm sorry for the short notice."

The woman shakes her head at his apology. "No, don't be sorry. We completely understand. This whole disaster with Shield is a nightmare across the board. I've been going through the files for days and we're combing through our own personnel and security systems. They were in Stark Industries, too. I don't. . . It makes me feel sick."

"You know, we almost used Shield Medical when Pep -" Tony Stark starts, then snaps his mouth shut with a click of teeth. He blinks rapidly a few times, a tremor in his hands and his chin as he watches the woman. After a hard swallow, he continues. "I'm glad we didn't. I can't imagine Nazis having access to Extremis. And you would have leaked Pepper's medical file when you uploaded all that shit, plus the stabilized formula. Fire-breathing Nazis are not something I want to deal with this Christmas."

The captain grimaces like he has been admonished by a superior, but the technician doesn't outrank him so -

 _(he sees the picture in the compass by accident and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth until he meets her back at the base and then it just makes his heart feel heavy with lead and eyes hurt where his tear ducts have gone dry because he can tell just by lookin' that Stevie would do anything she asked, wouldn't even question it, would jump on a damn grenade for her)_

\- he must be reacting to the woman.

The asset stiffens in the chair. The woman must be the captain's superior officer, like the agent or the colonel once was. She must have been the person he spoke to when they stopped in New Jersey, must have authorized the transfer back in D.C. He feels like an idiot for not realizing it sooner:

Miss Potts is Hydra Command.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** Warning for graphic depiction of accidental torture in this chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 6.**

The technician and the captain sit back down with the asset while Miss Potts and Jarvis coordinate for resupply. Tony Stark mentions that he thinks that this will take a while and that the asset should get comfortable. He takes that as an order, and reaches out for the captain's hand again before the technician can change his mind. The asset turns his head to the right as well so that he does not have to watch Tony Stark remove his arm.

It is going to hurt.

But the captain presses their foreheads together and their noses touch and the asset can feel the warmth of each exhalation ghosting over his skin. He breathes deeply and keeps his eyes open and tries not to look as scared as he feels. The captain holds his gaze, and puts his other hand on the asset's chest just below the dip of his clavicle. His heart is beating very fast.

"It's okay, Bucky. Just relax," the captain tells him, and while the asset manages to restrain from flinching, he knows that he will be punished later. He can't follow that command. It is going to _hurt_ , and he knows it's coming but he doesn't quite know when so he just has to grit his teeth and hope that the captain will be merciful afterwards.

The technician is digging into his arm again, is sending searing shocks up and down the length of the prosthetic and making his fingers tremble uncontrollably. His stomach gives a dangerous lurch, threatening to pull acid and the water from earlier up into his mouth. The asset's head is reeling and his vision swims and his throat is burning. He swallows hard, forcing the bile back down.

"What the fuck is this even connecting to right now?"

"Bucky? Talk to me, Buck," the captain orders, his voice filled with that wet concern that the asset last heard at the table in Sam Wilson's safehouse. The plates in his arm are scraping together loudly as the gears whir and grind, the metal expanding and contracting as it flexes. He can't stop the trembling and he knows that he's going to be punished for being weak and for malfunctioning but he _can't._ He _just_ _can't_. The asset opens his mouth to reply and makes a desperate, pained gasping sound instead. "Tony! Tony, stop! You're hurting him!"

The warning doesn't come soon enough. Tony Stark already has his tools and his fingers buried deep in his shoulder joint, has already activated the final process of the release mechanism. The arm detaches from the port embedded in his shoulder joint with an electrified hiss and pop, with the sizzle of overheated blood. It falls heavy to the floor because Tony Stark wasn't ready for it. There are still wires connected and they snap taught, making the asset's head slam back against the chair's flimsy head rest.

He can't even scream because his jaw is locked so tight that he can feel his teeth cracking. His tongue is bleeding where he has nearly bitten through it, flooding his mouth with a bitter copper taste. The repaired circuits are still firing signals to his nervous system, alarm sirens exploding behind his eyes as his vision whites out from the pain. The port is bleeding sluggishly, blood thick and red and he is leaking calibration fluid and he can't stop crying. His shoulders shake, his spine convulses, and he writhes in the seat, one of his legs kicking out to catch the technician in the knee.

The captain forces his mouth open, shoving his forearm between his teeth so that the asset has something to bite down on and throwing his full weight over the asset's thrashing body. They should have restrained him. Tony Stark is cursing and trying to disconnect the wires without ripping them out and causing further damage.

"Tony, fix it now!"

"That's what I'm trying to do!"

He feels like he's drowning in blood and fire. They should have put him under first, should have prepped him for the ice before removing the arm. It hasn't hurt this bad since the last upgrade, but he can't even pull the memory now, can't hide in it even for a moment to escape the pain.

And then it is over. The arm goes numb and silent, the electric current dead. They are all breathing heavily and the captain keeps saying 'I'm sorry' over and over again. The laboratory smells like burnt blood and fear, like mutilated meat and animal panic. Tony Stark slumps to a seat in the mess on the floor, his shoes spreading red and pale yellow smears as his legs stretch out in front of him. He is cradling the asset's metal arm in his lap, staring at the hanging wires and the connector plug inside the exposed opening beneath the artificial deltoid.

"Bucky? Bucky?! Buck, _please_ -" the captain cuts himself off with a broken sob that makes the asset's heart stutter. The captain has pulled himself free of the asset's teeth and has the asset's face framed in his hands. His eyes are too wide, too blue, too wet. The asset's vision slips and slides in and out of focus. He still wants to vomit. He still hasn't complied with the captain's order. That makes him feel worse. The asset is going to be punished for that. It is going to hurt so much worse than this if he doesn't do as he's told soon. "Come on, Bucky. . ."

"Yazir?" he finally manages to croak, his tongue a dead weight in his aching mouth. The captain presses his lips against the asset's forehead near his hairline and holds him for a long, long time after that, until the bleeding in his shoulder stops and his tongue starts to knit itself back together. He holds himself very still -

 _(don't squirm Buck you're gonna make it worse quit bein' such a baby ya big jerk this ain't nothin')_

\- because he has not been told to move yet. His repairs are not yet complete.

The technician pulls himself up to his feet with a groan and a pained wince.

"We better get cleaned up before Pepper gets back. I don't want her to see this shit."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** This chapter originally had an imagined blowjob and some accidental stimulation; however, because of site policy, those have been removed to keep the rating at 'M.' The gunkink and objectification remain. The uncensored version is up on AO3 (link to my works is in my bio) and the capkink meme. Also, I have no idea what the bolt-assembly carrier looks like in a real sniper rifle, or if you have to worry about clearing copper from smoothbore weapons like you have to do when cleaning one with rifling; I just based all the weapon descriptions on a combination of what I know about M4s and what I read about Russian large caliber rifles online, in case you're wondering what my references were.

* * *

 **Chapter 7.**

He is exhausted and off-balance when the captain forces him to rise from the chair. The asset stumbles over his own feet, his boots losing traction on the wet floor. But he doesn't fall because the captain catches him, wrapping strong arms around his chest to support his weight. He thinks that he must be so much lighter without the metal arm.

Not that it matters. The captain is more than capable of lifting him regardless.

"I didn't know, Bucky, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. . ." comes the captain's soothing whisper. He closes his eyes and lets his cheek rest against the captain's shoulder. The captain will take care of him now. He is okay. He hasn't healed, but he will in a few hours, and he is safe here. The captain told him he was safe. "Let me get you cleaned up."

"Miss Potts," he murmurs the name into the captain's jacket. "She will be upset."

The captain makes that awful, choked sound again. He hates that sound. "No, Buck, you know I wouldn't let you look a mess in front of a lady. Tony's gonna clean up the lab and I'm gonna clean up you and she'll be none the wiser."

It is a strange turn of phrase. He has no idea what it means. The asset assumes that it is another code, perhaps for a cover-up operation. He is familiar with those, though not in quite this context. The captain must have found the asset incredibly useful when they were in the Howling Commandos together for him to be willing to falsify a report to his superior officer even by omission. He is grateful for the second chance, and silently vows to make good use of it.

The asset is half-carried, half-dragged from the laboratory to the elevator, where the captain instructs Jarvis to take them up two floors to what must be the commander's quarters. The furniture is too nice to be asset barracks, he thinks, and there are pictures in glass frames on the walls in the hallway. Assets wouldn't get pictures. They don't need bookcases or doors or locks, either.

They bypass all these things on the way to the master bathroom, where the captain pins the asset between him and the sink counter. His legs are spread slightly for balance, with the captain's thigh planted between his, the edge of the counter pressing into the back of his legs just below his ass. If he unlocks his knees and lets himself slump down, he'd almost be sitting on the counter. The captain leans around him to turn the water on, shifting the asset so that he is positioned just to the right of the filling basin. He takes a washcloth from the towel rack on the wall and wets it before adding soap.

The captain starts at his face, carefully and gently stroking a corner of the cloth over his skin to clear the sweat and grime from his forehead. It feels good across his brow and over his temple, following his cheekbone, the line of his jaw, rubbing light pressure over and behind his ears. The asset closes his eyes again. The captain is cleaning him up so that they don't get in trouble and -

 _(he can't say anything can barely breathe because he's so damn scared he's gonna get caught and Jesus Mary and Joseph he'd rather die than have to be separated again)_

\- get transferred to different teams again.

Normally, he is washed down with a high-pressured hose after a mission and debriefing. A medical technician sees him and treats or documents whatever injuries he has received before his commander takes him into another room to spray the blood and filth from his body. Sometimes his skin is scrubbed raw with a hard brush. Then he is roughly dried and taken to the cryo-tank to go back into the ice.

The captain touches him like he is something important, something vital to mission success. He cleans him like a prized rifle, wiping away blood instead of gunpowder residue from the grooves of the scars over his ribs beneath the metal shoulder port. It is a pleasant image, thinking of himself like Captain America's favorite gun. If he were a rifle, then this touch here would be the captain cleaning the bolt slide so that his rounds chamber correctly when he goes to fire. And here where he is touched close to the exposed metal would be like scraping the black carbon residue off the firing and cam pins.

He can hear the water slosh in the sink each time the captain dips the cloth back into it to rinse it out. The asset is cleaned with soap instead of CLP, his owner focusing on sloughing away dirt instead of rust after use. He imagines that the rinsing is like dragging a brush breech to muzzle, that the captain is pulling slivers of copper from the smoothbore inside his barrel.

The asset tilts his head back. His breath is slow, labored and deep. He is acutely aware of the captain's body against his own, of the wet cloth traveling down his chest to his stomach. There is a warm feeling pooling low in his gut again, stronger than when he heard the captain laugh back in D.C. The captain steadies him with one hand, fingers gliding over the long line of his throat, curling around to the back of his neck.

This could go on forever, he thinks. It feels so good, so nice, so soft and he never wants to do anything to make the captain stop touching him like this.

"You still okay, Bucky?" the captain asks.

"Yes, sir," he answers. The cloth stops at the waistband of his pants. His upper receiver is spotless. The asset opens his eyes again, tilting his head to be able to look at the captain without leaning forward.

"Are you good to stand on your own? Your boots need to come off and you're going to have to change out of these pants."

He gives a small sound to confirm that he is capable of holding himself up without support, and then the captain sets the cloth aside and takes a knee to undo the laces of the asset's boots. It is an odd position to be in, though he isn't quite sure how he knows that. He thinks that the captain is not supposed to kneel, and there is something about having the captain's face at waist height that makes his skin feel hot and too small, like he'll burst if the captain touches him too roughly.

His belt follows the boots. The captain's hands are unbuttoning his pants. He is uncomfortable suddenly, and he isn't sure why. A weapon does not have a sense of modesty, does not feel embarrassed to be field-stripped and cleaned of debris. But he isn't a weapon, isn't Captain America's rifle, he just wants to be. He isn't blued steel and bolt-actioned. He is -

 _(tryin' not to look he swears trying not to open his big fuckin' mouth and ruin it when all he really wants to do is reach for him in the dark not because the captain is strong but because Bucky has always been weak)_

\- flesh and blood and metal and uncertainty. He is hungry for praise and terrified of punishment.

The captain tugs his pants down. The asset holds his breath.

There is no hiding in this moment that makes him forget what time is. He does not have any memories of the captain on his knees in front of him, but his mind is ticking and supplying him with images anyway. The captain in his mind leans forward those few precious inches, presses warm lips to the sharp lines of his lower abdominals, lets his tongue sweep over the asset's skin.

This isn't a memory. This isn't static or flashes of colors, isn't tactile information imprinted in his coding. He doesn't know what this is. The captain isn't actually touching him like that, he's just sliding the asset's pants down his legs to the floor. His head is bowed and the asset cannot see his face.

It isn't really happening but he is _hungry_ for it, and imagining the captain's mouth on him makes him twitch and shudder all over. He's flushed with desire and he has no idea what that means or what he wants or what the hell he's supposed to do about it.

He is made to step out of his pants. The asset grips the edge of the counter hard with his right hand. In his mind, his other arm has been reattached and he can tangle his metal fingers into the captain's short hair, can pull his commander closer and -

The captain looks. He opens his mouth to say something, then abruptly closes it again. The captain takes a deep breath and lets it out as a sigh, not exasperated or disappointed, just. . . tired. Uncertain. That makes two of them. The asset can feel the rush of warm air over him, and it makes his stomach muscles contract. Blue eyes slowly crawl the rest of the way up his body. He must look like an idiot, all wound up like rifle springs with his pupils blown wide and his chest heaving. He feels like an idiot.

"Do you need a minute?"

What the fuck does that _even mean?_ A minute for _what?_ The asset tenses his jaw and shakes his head from side to side. He wishes they would stop talking in code. He wishes he had been reset and reprogrammed so that he knew what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to respond. The captain grabs the washcloth again from the sink, rinsing it and applying more soap. He knows what the captain is going to do. The asset squeezes his eyes shut and lets his head fall back again.

He is a rifle, a weapon, a machine. He is smoothbore and cold metal. He is -

The captain has placed one hand on the asset's hip, and the other is scrubbing the washcloth over the opposite thigh, starting on the outside and working inward. These are not the same gentle, lingering touches that the captain had bestowed on his upper body. They lack the tenderness with which he had wiped away the layers of blood and sweat and oil, the grit and dirt that the waters of the Potomac had left on his skin when it dried. This is perfunctory. Necessary. Routine.

He is death and ice and a howling black wind. He is -

All too conscious of the way the back of the captain's hand brushes his inner thigh. The asset bites down on his lower lip. He is discipline. He is -

The captain moves lower, over the knee and down the front of the asset's shin, then around to wipe off the asset's calf. When he finishes that leg, he rinses the cloth, wringing it out several times before rewetting and applying more soap to start on the other side. An embarrassingly desperate whine escapes the asset when he is touched again.

The captain stands, and the asset opens his eyes again. He has ruined it, he knows he has and the captain must be angry, so angry with him that he -

 _(is getting on a train but he doesn't want to go and the air is hot and heavy and Stevie didn't even see him off because he's still so mad about the)_

\- will tell Miss Potts to send him away and he'll -

 _(swear it isn't payback, that he's not still mad about Coney Island or getting stuck out in Austria or letting him get shot in Lyon, but he's getting on the train and then he's falling falling falling and the ice is rushing up to meet him and the wind is screaming in his eyes so loud that he can't)_

\- get picked up by an extraction team and taken back to the laboratories for decommissioning.

"Turn around," the captain orders, and the asset complies. The counter is cold where it touches his flushed skin. He thinks his skin is going to split when the captain touches him again, that he's going to unravel into a twitching ball of corrupted code and conditioning. He's going to burst, to explode, to fire.

But he is a rifle, and they do not fire themselves. If his chest and his arms are part of his upper receiver, then his hips are the front and rear pivot pins, the skin below his navel is part of his magazine well and release. His thighs are trigger guards, the backs of his knees are pistol grips.

The captain wipes down his shoulders, draws the wet cloth down the length of his spine. Puts tiny circles of pressure into the small of his back with his thumbs. The asset's fingers are splayed on the countertop as he is pressed forward, the tile cracking under the pads of his fingertips. He is a rifle. His charging handle is the shallow recess of his spine between his lower back muscles. His forward assist is a bundle of tight nerves where his neck connects with his trapezius muscle.

He does not have a safety mechanism, but guns do not fire themselves.

The captain touches his ass, soapy fingers on his tense body instead of cloth, and the asset jerks forward against the counter. His dry skin slides haltingly on the cool tile, delicious friction that at the same time makes him bare his teeth in a grimace where he slammed his pelvic bone into the counter. He opens his eyes wide, and he can see the captain behind him in the mirror over his armless shoulder, and then he is firing.

Neither of them say anything. The captain turns him around and wipes the asset off and doesn't make eye contact. He is too drained to worry about what the punishment will be for a negligent discharge right now. His whole body feels weary and boneless but good, with equal parts pleasure and shame washing over him in slow waves and tingling in his extremities. The captain helps him stumble into the bedroom that they had passed through on the way into the bathroom, lets him fall into the bed.

Assets don't get beds. Rifles are kept in gun racks, he thinks, his eyes scanning the room carelessly. This must be the captain's bed under him, the captain's sheets being pulled up over his naked body. He has slept with a knife before, when it was allowed on long missions where he was left off the ice for more than a week. So maybe he's not surprised that the captain would sleep with his rifle in his bed. He wonders idly if the captain will stroke his throat like it's a barrel, will finger his scars like they are scratches along his handguards. Maybe he will be tucked into the captain's shoulder, nestled in close to reduce the recoil.

He doesn't hear the captain order him to get some rest, doesn't know if the captain gets in the bed after him. The asset closes his eyes and lets sleep and exhaustion take him under in the warm darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8.**

The captain is not in the bed when the asset wakes up. He sits up slowly because despite his body healing while he slept, he is still malfunctioning. His throat is dry and there is a gnawing ache in his stomach, worse than yesterday. Movement makes his head hurt, but he stands on unsteady feet anyway and stumbles back into the bathroom.

There are some aspects of his maintenance that he is capable of doing on his own. He relieves himself and smears soap on his hand before rinsing, but it is difficult to wash with just the one. His pants and boots are no longer on the floor. He doesn't think that he is supposed to wander through the base naked, but he has no other clothes. His hoodie and combat jacket are probably still in Tony Stark's laboratory.

He leaves the bathroom and pauses at the bedroom door. It is closed. He does not open closed doors without instruction. The asset steps back, hesitates, then steps forward again and puts his hand on the door knob. He needs to find the captain, needs to -

 _(forehead pressed against the wood and he's apologizing for the hundredth time and begging Stevie to please please just open the damn door)_

\- accept his punishment for last night.

The door opens, and the list of things he will be punished for gets longer. It is no wonder that he was only able to stay with the captain for two years before he was transferred last time, he thinks. He tries to remember how long he was assigned to Steve Rogers before that, but his memories of his first handler are still muddy and lack distinct time frames. It seems like Steve Rogers was bleeding or crying in all of his memories, though, so he must have been -

 _(the worst an absolute jerk ain't enough Hail Mary's or Our Father's in the world to make up for)_

\- even worse at following orders then. He probably failed a mission and that was why Steve Rogers put him on a train and had him become a sniper for Captain America.

These thoughts of Steve Rogers are painful. They make his eyes wet and his chest ache worse than his head or his stomach. The asset shudders and pushes it from his mind. If he can just find the captain again, everything will be all right.

He exits the bedroom, his bare feet silent as he pads down the hallway. It ends in a bright, open room with a low table and an L-shaped sofa. There is a rug on the floor beneath them. The asset stops in the shadow of the hallway, back pressed against the wall as he surveys the area.

The room has a partial partition, a half-wall with a flat bar and four tall, dark-backed seats lined up in front of it. The woman from yesterday is sitting in one, her hair loose and today's attire crisply pressed. Her skirt is slate grey and her top floral, her heels black. The captain is on the other side of the partition, standing in what looks like the floor's kitchen wearing a white shirt and a sad expression. They both have ceramic mugs with hot liquid inside. There is a file on the counter. The asset cannot tell if it is open or not, but assumes that it must be. Perhaps they are discussing its contents. He hopes that it is his file.

"Tony was still working on that arm when I checked on him earlier," Miss Potts is saying. The asset cannot see her face. "Said he's making progress, and can probably reattach it tonight if you're both up to it."

"Thanks, Miss Potts," the captain says, but Miss Potts raises her hand to stop him before he can say anything else.

"Just 'Pepper,' Steve. How's your friend? Tony said his name was Bucky." The asset's heart skips a beat. The captain must be just starting to make his report, and he now has the opportunity to listen in on it. He is concerned; if the captain tells her everything, she might decide that he is beyond repair, but if the captain omits anything and Miss Potts realizes. . . That would be worse, he decides. He must not let the captain be punished for his errors.

The captain is toying with his mug, shifting it this way and that on the bartop by its handle. "Yeah. Well, his name is James, but he likes. . . I mean, he used to like being called 'Bucky,'" the captain says after a minute. "Jesus, I didn't even bother to ask if he still wanted to be called that. We haven't talked."

"You haven't talked?" she repeats, an obvious prompt for further clarification. The asset's legs feel weak. This is not good. The superior officer shouldn't have questions, and not said with that level of concern, so early. They haven't even discussed the mission yet, and now Miss Potts will know that the asset was never fully debriefed after he turned himself over to the captain. She will know that he has yet to explain the extent of his malfunction or why he failed his mission. The asset should have told the captain all of this yesterday, back at Sam Wilson's safehouse, but he has been distracted since the captain took his hand at the table.

"Practically the only things he's said to me since I got out of the hospital are 'yes, sir' and 'captain.' I don't think he -" the captain cuts himself off with a bark of laughter, but it's twisted and wrong and not like it should be. It is a punishment. The asset flinches, jerking back against the wall. Do they know that he is listening? He watches the captain put a hand over his eyes, shoulders sagging with something that looks too much like defeat. The asset's stomach plummets again. This is wrong, all wrong, the captain is _never_ defeated. "Oh my god -"

 _("What have you done. . .?")_

 _("I didn't, I swear. I wouldn't. You know I wouldn't.")_

"- He barely remembers his _own_ name, and here I'm upset that he hasn't remembered mine."

The asset is afraid, but it isn't like the feeling he got in the laboratory, this tension in his body isn't like waiting for the inevitable agony. This is a slow suffocation, like he's being held under shallow water with the air and the surface so close that he can feel them break on his skin but can't seem to pull anything but liquid into his lungs when he takes a breath. This is -

 _(locked down in the trenches and everything is cold and ruptured bodies and men screaming cries lost in hails of gunfire and exploding artillery shells and he wants to live but knows he deserves to die)_

\- different. He's scared that the captain is going to tell Miss Potts something that makes her think that he isn't worth salvaging. There are so many things wrong with him, so many things that he has done wrong.

"It's okay to be out of your depth," Miss Potts is saying, placing one of her hands over the captain's where it is still holding onto his mug. The captain shakes his head from side to side. "I'll call in the medical team we had when Tony came back from Afghanistan. They're the best trauma specialists in the world; Dr. Santini recommended a very good therapist that I've been seeing, and he's based here in New York."

"This isn't just out of my depth. We _hurt him_ , Pepper, in the lab last night. And then, when I got him back up here. . . I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm scared that I'm only making it worse."

The asset is breathing too fast and his heart is beating wildly in his chest like it's trying to fight its way out. He is beginning to sweat and shake. The captain isn't going to omit anything from his report, despite what he said last night. It's all going in and his commander is going to get sacked and he's going to -

 _(step up onto the train with the other boys getting ready for war)_

 _(fall with the wind too loud biting white noise and so much static)_

\- get sent away again, but this time Captain America isn't going to come get him off the table or chase him across rooftops. This time he is going to go into the ice and never ever come out.

"Well, we do have a floor that's been converted to an intensive care clinic and if you're worried about him leaving, it has a room for the Hulk -"

" _No!_ " he doesn't mean to say the word out loud, but once he has there is no taking it back. The asset steps out from the hallway into the room, his fingers curling into his palm in a loose fist with the thumb pressed flat to the first joint of his forefinger. He squares his shoulders and holds his arm rigid at his side against where the seam of his pants would have gone. His heels are brought together sharply on line, toes pointing forward at a forty-five degree angle, the weight of his body distributed evenly on the heels and balls of both feet. He makes sure that he does not lock his knees while keeping his legs straight. "Ma'am, I can explain."

The captain goes pale and drops his hand from his face to the counter. Miss Potts turns in her seat to look over at him, one arm on the back of the chair. Her eyes widen a little and her brows rise up questioningly as her gaze first sweeps down his body and then quickly returns to settle on the asset's face. She has taken in his military posture, assessed that he is ready to report, and asks him to proceed, "Oh?"

"Miss Potts, I have misled the captain," the asset lies, and he is surprised that he knows how. It slides off his tongue with a honeyed kind of ease, and he offers her a smile like the one he remembers seeing in the Smithsonian. It only lasts a few seconds before he schools his expression into one of calm reserve. He can lie for the captain, since the captain obviously cannot lie for himself. "I know exactly who I am. I'm Sergeant James Barnes, and I served in the 107th Infantry Division in Europe before being transferred to Captain America's Howling Commandos. I was assigned as the captain's sniper from 1943 to 1945. I remained a European asset following the end of the war. I was last assigned as the Strike team's sniper under Commander Rumlow, with orders to assassinate Captain America and the Black Widow. I lost all contact with the team during the battle on the Triskelion. Our base of operations was destroyed and I was unable to contact Command afterwards, so I returned to Captain America. I believe that my previous mission was the result of faulty intelligence; I understand that I have been transferred back under his care and that I am not supposed to kill him. He and I make a very effective team."

Miss Potts opens her mouth, but pauses there, taking in the totality of his report for a second before her composure slips back into place. "Thank you for telling me. . . all of that," she says, and then turns back to the captain, who is staring at the asset with a confused kind of horror evident on his face. "Steve? Why don't you and James get dressed? I'll call the doctors."

The captain does not move or make motion to indicate that he had heard her. The asset isn't quite done with his report. He knows that if he doesn't tell her about the extent of the damage that he received, the doctors will decommission him. The asset needs to downplay the severity of it. He tries to wet his lips but his mouth is too dry. He needs to keep lying to keep them from being separated.

"My arm has been malfunctioning for several days. I had two broken ribs and a concussion, and they healed. I have been experiencing pain in my head and abdomen since the battle because I am due for maintenance and a reset. I was injured in the fall, ma'am, but I am not broken."

"Of course you're not broken, James," Miss Potts says quickly. "No one thinks you're broken. Are you hungry?"

He knows the answer to this question. The asset thinks that he will always be hungry. It is a part of his programming, this aching need to have his commander close. He is looking at the captain when he answers. "Yes, ma'am."

"When did you last eat?" she asks him, still turned away with her head canted down like she is thoughtfully considering her drink as she lifts it. The asset turns the question over carefully in his mind, wracking his memory for dates. He wants to make sure that he answers all of her questions fully so that he can stay with the captain. She has the authority to revoke the assignment orders at any time, so he must always be very careful from now on.

"1954," he replies. The woman starts, her hands stalling and mug coming down hard on the countertop, liquid sloshing. She turns to stare at him with disbelief. It makes him nervous. The asset tenses his jaw and tries to elaborate. "I was moved to a liquid and intravenous diet for cryostasis in 1954. I don't. . . I don't remember the exact date, ma'am. It might be in my file."

"Steve."

"Yeah," the captain finally says, shakes his head once, and steps out from the kitchen. "Come on, Buck, let's. . . let's go get dressed."

They're going to be okay, he thinks, relieved. He's done it, he has protected them both. They are going to stay together and the captain is going to take care of him. The asset follows the captain back into the bedroom. He will probably be punished for lying, but the captain won't do it in front of Miss Potts, which is all that matters.

But the captain doesn't beat him when the door closes behind them. He hands the asset clothing from a dresser and instructs him to dress. They aren't making eye contact, their fingers do not brush in passing when he takes the black shirt and the blue jeans. He is struck with the awful notion that perhaps the captain is going to punish him by withholding the sound of his voice and the feeling of his skin against the asset's. That isn't fair. It's cruel. The asset _had_ to lie, he had to protect them, doesn't the captain see that?

"You shouldn't talk to her without me there," the words bubble up out of his mouth unbidden, sharp and insubordinate. His eyes widen, his chest goes hot and tight and there's cold seeping into his veins at the way the captain lifts his gaze to finally look at him, at the tilted angle of his head and the grim line of the captain's mouth. He desperately wants to take it back.

"And why's that, Bucky?"

"Because. . ." there's a memory here, some hazy flitting thing in the asset's periphery. Maybe it's the right response, the programmed behavior that he can use to salvage this before the captain leaves to tell Miss Potts the truth. The asset is breaking. He is long overdue for a reset, and he isn't sure if he can still be wiped. He reaches for the memory -

 _(tastes the cigarette hanging loose between his lips, smoke curling past his eyes and shirt all unbuttoned and open as they lean off the fire escape into a cool breeze, and he's sneering at Stevie, lying, because he wants it so badly to be true and if he just says it enough then maybe everyone else will believe it, too, and he won't have to share)_

\- and repeats, "Because you can't talk to dames worth a damn, that's why."

The captain laughs. He wraps his arms around the asset's shoulders and pulls him close, their bodies pressed tight. The asset turns his face against the captain's neck, and breathes in the scent of him, soap and warmth and something intangible that he _craves_. He has been rewarded. This will be simple; he already has all the appropriate responses, he just has to find them in the code.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Starting this chapter, please be aware that there may be some internalized/period-typical homophobia. Bucky hasn't quite grasped the concept of sexual attraction yet, but it is present and will continue to show up in the future.

* * *

 **Chapter 9.**

"When did you put a hospital in the tower?" the captain asks Miss Potts as the three of them enter the elevator. Miss Pots has the asset's file in one hand, and her phone in the other. She gives the captain a humorless smile.

"Well, it isn't a full hospital, not really. It's a couple of rooms for surgery and recovery, a quarantine unit in case of a chemical or biological attack, cold storage for fluids and pharmaceuticals, that kind of thing," she answers. The asset wonders if his cryo-tank will be located in cold storage as well. It is good to know that it is an option, but he doesn't want to go back on ice just yet. The captain will not be with him if he is on ice. "We can do MRIs, x-rays, CT scans and bloodwork in the medical lab on this floor, too. Tony added a lot of things to the tower after the Battle of New York. And then again, after Killian."

". . . You guys were really prepared for this whole thing with Shield to go down," the captain notes with a sigh, and reaches out to take the asset's hand without looking. Their fingers interlock, palms warm and comfortable where they meet. He likes holding hands with the captain. It makes him feel closer to his commander, even though they are already standing closely in the elevator.

"Tony never trusted Shield. He rarely trusts anyone."

"You know, I think he's been right not to."

The elevator doors open onto a floor that is clean and white, sterile tile beneath their feet as they enter. It is distinctly a medical facility, and there are two individuals - one male and one female - in lab coats waiting for them. They must be the technicians, and they greet Miss Potts first, then the captain. There is a brief conversation about the asset's medical condition before the technicians turn their joined attention to the asset. They ask him several questions only some of which he can answer before instructing the asset to follow them into another room.

"While sometimes we can be grateful for the fact that Tony is incredibly paranoid, it's not a great way to live, Steve," Miss Potts is saying in a quiet voice, perhaps so that the technicians cannot hear. Her conversation with the captain is meant only for them, and these base support personnel are not part of Captain America's team. "And thinking that you can't trust anyone and that you have to do it all on your own is hard. You end up pushing away people who genuinely want to help you."

The captain releases the asset's hand and places it instead on the small of his back just above the waistband of his jeans, and murmurs that he'll be with the asset the whole way. He is reassured that there is nothing to be scared of and that he is safe.

In the other room, the asset sits down on a padded gurney table. He pays little notice to the medical technicians as they work, hooking up sensors and machines to monitor him. They touch his throat, feel for swollen lymph nodes, and take his blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, writing down numbers and explaining the point of a general examination for functionality. He thinks that they are using strange and unfamiliar terms, but the medical teams are always what change the most between his missions. The male technician places a cold stethoscope on his chest and tells him to breathe deeply. It is also placed on his back and the test repeated.

To the asset's left, the captain and Miss Potts are continuing their conversation from earlier in the same low tones:

"I know," the captain's reply is almost a whisper. His commander is focused intently on the technicians, his eyes narrowed as he watches them work. "I just. . . It's become a lot harder to tell who's on our side these days. You checked everyone at the tower?"

The asset allows the female technician to tie an elastic band around his arm. She feels the inside of his elbow for the vein, gently tapping it for a few seconds and rolling it beneath her fingers. He watches as she inserts a needle into his arm and removes the elastic; they draw four vials of blood from the site before she attaches a thin plastic tube and an I.V. bag, which she hangs next to him on a rolling metal pole. The liquid inside the bag is cold and a seeping chill starts at the needle site before creeping up his arm and down his torso. He shivers a little, but it is pleasant. It is familiar. He's done this dozens of times. The male technician takes the vials and exits the room.

"Of course. It was the first thing we did after we realized what was happening in D.C." Miss Potts sounded annoyed that she even had to say it, and the captain turns back to her with an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry, Pepper. I'm on edge. It's been hard thinking that I've been working for the same people I was willing to die to defeat. I lost Bucky fighting them, I put a plane down in the Arctic to stop them, and now I realize that for the last two years I've been helping them. I've been killing people for the Nazis."

 _("I don't like bullies, no matter where they're from.")_

Miss Potts nods, puts a hand on the captain's shoulder briefly. "I know. It'll be all right, Steve," she says. The captain offers her a terse half-smile, like he's being too polite to tell her that he doesn't believe her, and then she releases him. Her phone buzzes in her hand, and she glances down to check the display. The asset's file transfers hands, and the captain tucks it under one arm. "I need to take this. I'll just be out in the hall."

His commander nods and watches her leave the room. The technician engages his commander by discussing the asset's maintenance, something about him being dehydrated and exhibiting early signs of malnourishment. They want him to stay on a liquid diet for a few weeks before moving onto simple solid foods. She switches out his empty I.V. bag for a full one when his body has sucked it dry, and then leaves the two of them alone in the room.

There is a chair against one wall, and the captain drags it over so that he can sit next to the asset. They are both very quiet for six minutes, with only the sound of their breathing and the captain's restless tapping of the file against his palm to mar the silence. He is watching the captain, and the captain is staring at the folder.

"Hey, Buck?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"You keep mentioning when we served together during the war, but what did you. . . what did you do before 1943? Do you remember?"

"Yes, sir. I was Steve Rogers's -" the asset cuts himself off abruptly, brows furrowed in confusion. There's a word for this, but he doesn't remember it, can't piece it together from the flashes of insight and memory. He's trying to think of what it might have been, what exactly he had been for Steve Rogers. He wasn't yet a sniper, so what did he do for his first handler? "I was his. . ." -

 _("I had him on the ropes.")_

 _("Don't need you to take care of me, Buck.")_

The memories slap him, hard and intrusive, loud and violent in his ears. This isn't like his previous malfunctioning. This makes his lips quiver and his breathing hitch and falter, makes his stomach roil with self-loathing. Steve Rogers had been angry when the asset belonged to him. He used to make Steve Rogers angry -

 _("James Buchanan, if you come around this house with that cold, if you get my boy sick, I swear with God as my witness")_

\- and he used to hurt him and make him cry. Steve Rogers was sick and it was the asset's fault.

He still hasn't answered the captain. He doesn't know how. Whatever it was that he did before being transferred to Captain America, he knows that it was important. It was the most important mission he has ever had in his entire life and he doesn't remember it. He can recall the muted colors and sights and sounds of Brooklyn, the feel of charcoal and graphite and tears smudged across lips and cheekbones. He can remember gasping breaths and pained wheezes, coughs that were wet with blood. There is always an undercurrent of fear in his memories with Steve Rogers. "He. . . He was my. . ."

The captain puts a hand on his shoulder, reaches up with one hand to touch the asset's face, which is wet, but he doesn't remember when he started crying. He wishes he knew -

 _(he's screaming through the door, pounding on it with both fists, "You fuckin' punk, you goddamn hypocrite, it's all well an' good and patriotic for you")_

\- what happened to Steve Rogers, but he thinks he knows and he can't stand the thoughts that are crawling up through the code and the memories. The asset can't breathe, can't see, can't feel anything but the wood splintering under his fists and the ice seeping up through the back of his jacket, can't hear anything but the rattle of the train down the tracks and Stevie coughing back sobs -

 _("You open this damn door or, I swear to God, I'll break it down and beat your ass, Stevie, don't think I won't.")_

"Bucky?" the captain says, and he's moved at some point to stand next to the asset, hands on both shoulders, the file on his chair. He's gripping him tightly and turning him so that he has to look at the captain. "Bucky, are you okay? Look at me." -

 _(He's always been sick but he didn't think this kind of thing was catching but maybe it is, maybe he got it playing down by the Navy Yard as a boy, and he's so scared that Stevie's gonna see it gonna know it, dark and messy like an infection behind his eyes beneath his skin all set into the marrow of his bones and blackening his soul)_

"I-I was. . . He was. . ." but the words refuse to come, and he can't force anything else out past the wreck of pain and terror and the rush of winter in his lungs.

"Bucky, look at me," the captain commands a second time. The asset complies, eyes wide and uncomprehending. His commander is hurting, too, and it _hurts_ the asset to know that he did that. He caused the captain to hurt and he isn't supposed to do that but he thinks that he's always done that because at his core he's corrupted, broken, awful, _the worst._ "We don't. . . We don't have to talk about the past right now. We don't have to talk about anything until you're ready. Do you know who I am?"

The asset nods. His commander's voice and touch are grounding, are pushing back the panic so that he can reach for his training beneath all the memories. His heart rate is causing the monitor to beep urgently, but the technicians aren't in the room. Maybe they were already and the captain sent them away so that he could deal with this malfunction himself. They are a team, he remembers. A very effective team. A capable handler can keep the asset combat ready for up to two weeks.

"You're Captain America," the asset says, and there's something dark and awful and raw in the way that the captain looks at him, something cracking under the surface. It tears at him like shrapnel in a wound but he doesn't know why he's being punished now. "You're my captain."

The captain nods and excuses himself from the room. When he leaves, the technicians reenter the room and check the asset's vital signs again and adjust his I.V. The door closes, but it only muffles the noise from the hallway.

He didn't notice it before, in Tony Stark's laboratory, but the captain sounds like Steve Rogers when he cries.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** Additional warnings for mentions of past abuse/torture. Also, in the Army, a Staff Sergeant outranks a Sergeant by one grade, hence why Bucky thinks Sam is one of his superiors. However, Sam was actually the same grade as Bucky, because in the Airforce, a Staff Sergeant is an E-5 not an E-6. An Airforce E-6 is called a "Technical Sergeant." Bucky uses the term "buck sergeant" to refer to the fact that he was a junior grade sergeant; this is a common way for Soldiers to differentiate ranks among non-commissioned officers. And now Sid is done applying modern Army silliness to the 1940s.

* * *

 **Chapter 10.**

An hour passes, then two. The asset does not speak to the technicians even when they ask him questions that he knows the answers to, though he continues to comply with their instructions when given. A small cup of warm broth is thrust into his hand and he drinks it slowly, sipping it like he has been told to. It is a test. If he rejects the broth, then he has failed the test.

The captain has not returned, but the sound of crying has stopped. It is quiet on the other side of the door.

The asset stares at the door and drinks his broth. He is an idiot. He shouldn't have been talking about Steve Rogers; he barely remembers his first handler, and what he does remember causes him to malfunction. The captain is angry, he thinks. Or maybe this is what 'upset' looks like. The asset pauses with the brim of the cup at his lips. He remembered that Steve Rogers had been upset -

 _("If I wasn't upset about some stupid thing you'd done on Monday, Buck, then it wouldn't be Tuesday, now would it?")_

\- with him, and that he had worried that he would upset Miss Potts, but he doesn't really recall what 'upset' entails. It's bad, though. He knows it's awful and never ends well for him.

He swallows another sip of the broth, forcing it past the growing knot of anxiety in his throat. His hand is shaking when he lowers the cup from his face. The asset glares at it until the tremors subside. This is an inappropriate response to punishment. And of course that's what this is; he hurt his captain. He was insubordinate, and can't seem to follow simple orders and just do as he's told anymore, and now he is finally getting that punishment he earned. That was why the captain hadn't come back. The asset is -

 _(sorry so fuckin' sorry didn't even mean it like that thinks he's gonna die if Stevie don't forgive him soon)_

\- in confinement. He is being starved of the captain's presence until he learns how to -

 _(shut up behave obey forget)_

There's still liquid in the cup. The asset swirls it slowly. It is important that he finish all of it, that he keep it down, that he doesn't fail again. If he is good, if he can just be _good_ for the captain, then the punishment will end. The captain will touch him again, will speak to him and see him and let himself be seen and touched again.

He didn't used to care about that, he thinks. There are no memories of wanting to touch Commanders Rumlow, or Baader, or Lukin, or Ivanov. He doesn't know why he remembers these names now, but he does. They were all dark, hazy, without faces, defined only by short dark hair, foreign uniforms, and rough hands. If he had still been assigned to any of those men, he knows that he would have just been beaten or wiped. Commander Rumlow was quick to reset because he valued obedience. Oberst Baader had believed that loyalty was strongest when backed by fear; he preferred to beat the asset with a heavy chain or the bullwhip that was kept in his office. General Lukin used to shoot him just to watch him heal. Doctor Ivanov liked to cut him.

His handlers weren't always dark. Captain Pierce -

 _(is new and blond and young and his dress uniform is American but not right, darker green, no belt, officer's cap in his hands, and there is nothing the asset enjoys more than the way this man smiles at him when he adjusts the infantry insignia at his lapel or brushes his metal fingers over his ribbon rack)_

\- preferred to wrap his hands around the asset's throat and hold him under water. He wasn't allowed to fight back. He doesn't always remember wanting to.

Captain America did not punish him like that. Steve Rogers never beat him. The asset takes another sip. He prefers the beatings to this cruelty. At least then the captain would have been touching him, there in the room with him. But it's not like this is a difficult test. The asset would have drunk shattered glass for the captain. He has swallowed poison before for previous handlers. A little broth will be easy to keep down.

The door opens, and the asset lifts his head, squaring his shoulders and preparing to stand. He remembers now that he is supposed to stand when an officer enters a room. It is not an officer who enters.

It is Sam Wilson.

"Hey, James," Sam Wilson says, smiling at the asset. He has a mouth made for easy smiles, a relaxed quality to the spread of his shoulders and brightness to his dark eyes. The asset's eyes sweep over him, assessing threat. There is a weight in the right pocket of Sam Wilson's jeans, a slim metal rectangle roughly four inches long. A multi-tool, then. He appears otherwise unarmed. The asset knows that he is better with a knife than Sam Wilson is, and more proficient in hand-to-hand combat, even without the metal arm. But the asset doesn't need to hurt Sam Wilson, he reminds himself; they are on the same team now. "How're you holding up?"

They are silent for three solid minutes. The asset looks down at the cup in his hand, which is the only thing he is holding, and thinks that Sam Wilson's question is stupid. Apparently, he is supposed to answer it anyway, because Sam Wilson is just standing there, waiting. The asset can lift one hundred and ninety-four pounds with his flesh and blood arm. This cup has one ounce of liquid left in it. He thinks it's pretty damn obvious _how_ he is able to hold it up.

Maybe it's a test to see if he will follow the orders of the captain's other personnel. It occurs to him that he has no idea whether or not he is supposed to follow anyone else's orders. When he was on Strike, any of the other members of the team could have given him instructions, though they generally left that to Commander Rumlow. He thinks that it is because they were all agents. The asset is a sergeant. Agents must outrank sergeants.

Not all Hydra teams have the same structure, though. In the Howling Commandos, the rest of the team had been made of soldiers. Soldiers are subordinate to sergeants. The asset had outranked everyone except Captain America, so only his commander or the colonel or the agent could give him orders. He had duties and responsibilities -

 _("Stay in your lane.")_

 _(Beans bullets bodies)_

 _(Blades braids and)_

\- outside of eliminating targets. There is a vague memory of another team where only his handler was allowed to speak to him. The rest of that team wasn't made up of agents or technicians or officers. They had all been very small. It is a confusing memory, so the asset ignores it.

He is already in confinement, so it is important that he respond appropriately, and for that he needs to know where he stands with Sam Wilson. He knows for certain that Sam Wilson is not a superior officer, because he lacks the kind of bearing and presence that Miss Potts has. The asset is fairly confident that he's not some kind of technician, either, since they rarely engage in combat on missions and he knows that Sam Wilson acts as Captain America's personal air support. He thinks that Sam Wilson is most likely either another asset, or an agent.

If he were an agent, that might make this complicated. Agents have their own internal rank structure that doesn't always match up to the military hierarchy Hydra prefers. This is not going to be easy, he thinks. He was not built to understand complexities, intricate and immense in the way that only Hydra can be. The asset wishes he still had his mask; it was always so much easier to watch his mouth when he was muzzled. He thinks he remembers someone - or many people, spread out across the years and continents - telling him that he talked a lot, or maybe just too much, but he can't recall the exact memory.

"Without strain," the asset says at last, which is apparently a satisfactory answer. Sam Wilson takes a seat in the chair that the captain had moved over next to the gurney table. He has the asset's file in his hands.

"Well, that's as good a place to start as any."

Four more minutes go by in silence.

"Are you an agent?" the asset asks. Sam Wilson shakes his head.

"No. I was in the Airforce for a long time, got out as a staff sergeant, and now I work as a counselor with the VA."

He doesn't know what a counselor is, but he knows what a staff sergeant is. Staff sergeants outrank sergeants. There is a cold feeling in his gut that twists at the knowledge that the captain has another asset to care for. Sam Wilson smiles at him again. The asset wonders if he is supposed to return it. He doesn't think he can so he does not attempt it.

"I was a buck sergeant when I was with the Howling Commandos."

"Yeah? Is that why Steve calls you 'Bucky?'"

"No, Sergeant. Steve Rogers -"

 _(always called him 'Bucky' unless he was in a right fit and the name felt like a precious fuckin' gift and it didn't matter how tired he was or how hungry or how badly he'd gotten his ass handed to him in a fight when he heard that name in Stevie's mouth, on his tongue, falling from those lips, it made him feel hot and cocky and fuckin' stupid some days, and dear God, he was going straight to Hell)_

The asset stops, mid explanation. Steve Rogers had used it often but he doesn't know why. He thinks that his first handler must have given it to him when they were assigned to one another. It was a long time ago; he can almost remember Steve Rogers being even smaller, impossibly more fragile, sicker, than he was in the Smithsonian, but the image in his mind flickers, trembles, flees before he can quite understand. He thinks it might have been a secret, once, but it obviously isn't anymore and that's a stupid thing to think, anyway. The asset didn't have any secrets from Hydra before he jumped into the Potomac after the captain. He takes another sip of his broth. "Captain America did not use it as often. He uses it more now."

They are interrupted as the captain enters with Miss Potts. The asset stands quickly. Sam Wilson looks over to the door and does not rise.

There is a half-second where the audacity of the action, or lack of action, as it were, shocks him. What the _fuck_ is this staff sergeant thinking? Miss Potts hasn't noticed yet because she is deep in conversation with the captain, but once she does, Sam Wilson is dead -

 _(they leave the bodies in the mud)_

 _(there's blood on his hands and at first he wonders if he tried to render aid but then he remembers that he doesn't know how and that's not his primary function anyway)_

\- and the loss will reflect poorly on the captain. He remembers the captain's dislike of losing team members the last time they were together. The asset drops his cup then, hand darting out to grab Sam Wilson by the front of his shirt and yank him roughly to his feet.

"Woah!" Sam Wilson exclaims, hands going up to show that he meant no harm.

The sudden outburst of sound and movement draws the officers' attention, and the captain closes the distance between the door and table in a blur as he orders, "Sergeant Barnes, stand down!"

He complies immediately, hand jerking away like the captain has poured acid on him. _Sergeant Barnes_. So, the punishment is not yet over. The captain will withhold his name - his name is Sgt. James Barnes, though, the Smithsonian told him that - or his not-name, his better-than-a-name. He hadn't questioned it before, but he questions it now. It must have been the call sign he used when he belonged to Steve Rogers. He doesn't want the captain to call him anything else. It had made him feel. . .

It had made him _feel_.

The captain has his hands on Sam Wilson, his body a physical barrier between the two men as he looks between them with concern. The asset corrects the thought: not-men. Assets. They are not men, they are weapons. His hand closes into a fist at his side. The asset hates the familiarity of their touch, the way that the captain's hand rests on Sam Wilson's shoulder. He hates knowing that the captain cares about this _other._ It should have just been the two of them, against Hydra's enemies, 'til the end of the line. That was how it was supposed to be, with Steve Rogers. That is how he wants it to be with Captain America.

"What happened? You okay?" the captain asks Sam Wilson, who nods and brushes himself off. He thinks that Sam Wilson knows what has happened, is aware that the asset just saved his life. Sam Wilson had better be a good liar, because he doesn't want to upset Miss Potts. The captain will have to punish them both, later, privately, but the captain is merciful to a fault.

He amends that deduction quickly: the captain is not faulty. The asset is faulty, dysfunctional, he makes things around him break and bleed and cry. There is nothing wrong with the captain.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. You just startled us, is all. We're fine," Sam Wilson replies, and looks meaningfully at the asset. If they are all very lucky, Miss Potts will not be upset. She will not punish them. He hopes that she allows the captain to discipline his own team. If they are not, he might have to go back on the ice, away from the captain. The possibility makes him angry. "Right, James? We're all good, yeah?"

 _Fuck._ He doesn't even _like_ Sam Wilson.

"Yes, Sergeant." His hand is shaking at his side. The asset tenses his jaw. Something is happening to him. His training is crumbling too early; he should've had a few more days left of functionality, but he doesn't. "Sir, I think it's time for my reset."

The captain freezes. Maybe he shouldn't have used the word 'think.'


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** ARFORGEN is short for "The Army Force Generation" model, which wasn't a thing until 2004/2006, and the Army deployment cycle really does include a "Reset phase" after deployments or when units come out of "Ready" status. We also have a "Reset program" the Logistics fellas run to extend the life of Army equipment.

* * *

 **Chapter 11.**

The silence in the room is deafening. His eardrums buzz with it, like static over a radio. Sam Wilson is looking at him from around the captain, brows furrowed with concern. The captain's expression is smoothing out into something blank, guarded and unfamiliar. It looks wrong. The asset doesn't think he remembers the captain ever looking at him like this before, but it hurts and he is afraid to look too deeply for memories of the captain punishing him. It hurts more than the memories of his other handlers.

 _(Stevie always knew how to hurt him best)_

"Reset?" Miss Potts repeats, confused. "He's mentioned it before. What is he talking about?" She's still by the door. Sam Wilson quickly steps in to misdirect, though the asset isn't quite sure why it's necessary. Then again, maybe Command level officers are not supposed to be bothered with the banalities of asset maintenance. He really isn't sure. The asset can't remember meeting any other members of Hydra Command before.

"It's an Army thing, don't worry, Miss Pepper," Sam Wilson says with another smile. "Part of the deployment cycle."

"We didn't have Arforgen in 1945." He's not sure who the captain is speaking to. Sam Wilson shrugs and moves from his position behind the captain to stand beside him in front of the asset. Miss Potts is also approaching. The asset feels nervous. He's got three superiors watching him and no idea what any of them expect. There's gotta be something in the code that can get him out of this mess that his big mouth got him into. He doesn't know what 'arforgen' is, but Sam Wilson mentioned the Army and he knows -

 _(standing in line with spit on his face, and he never did like being screamed at when they demand he be stronger better faster kill kill kill)_

\- that the Army had basic protocols that he was supposed to abide by. Some of them he remembers. There are -

 _(customs courtesies ceremony order discipline bullshit bravado bleeding out crying 'I wanna go home' but it doesn't seem like there's anything except the mud and cold of the trenches)_

\- things that he is supposed to say in certain situations, actions to counter other actions, correct ways to position his body and move his limbs. Somewhere, there are regulations for this, manuals he thinks he has seen before in the hazy soup of his past, but doesn't quite remember.

The asset closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose. He shifts into a position of attention once more. He needs to focus, needs to figure out his next move, needs to get a _fucking grip_ , _Jesus_. They were in the Army before, so he knows that he has this programming somewhere. He just has to find it amid all the other pieces of his past. The asset estimates that he has thirty seconds to come up with something before Sam Wilson starts talking again, because they have already been silent for a minute and a half and he doesn't think that the staff sergeant will let them stay quiet for too long with both the captain and Miss Potts in the room.

He doesn't need to understand to follow orders. The asset knows this like he knows how to fire a gun, how to calculate trajectories and account for wind speed when taking a shot. But his brain keeps trying to make connections and offering possibilities and it is distracting.

There are some things that he knows as facts: he was transferred to Hydra's Army division in the '40s after he failed Steve Rogers. They made him a sniper and gave him an upgrade before he was assigned to Captain America. He was put on a train and taken back to the laboratories for further improvements when he failed the captain in 1945. Captain America has always been a commander under the Army division. Hydra Command has transferred him back to Captain America, and therefore, this new team must fall under the Army.

He wants to ask Miss Potts why he was sent to kill Captain America and the Black Widow, if they are both Hydra, but thinks better of it. Commander Pierce had not liked it when he asked questions, and the asset doesn't want to press his luck. He is not lucky. In the briefing, he remembers that he was told that they both worked for the target Nicholas Fury, and Nicholas Fury had been the director of SHIELD. He thinks that a director is a lot like a colonel.

SHIELD is not the Army. SHIELD is the enemy of Hydra. Why would his captain be working for the enemy?

The captain had said something earlier that implied he had been tricked, duped. Both the captain and Tony Stark had mentioned the Nazis. It starts clicking into place, making sense out of the twisting threads he's stumbled upon over the last few days. The asset knows what Nazis are because they had been mentioned in the Smithsonian. The exhibit told him that Captain America had been fighting the Third Reich during World War II. He had read about how the Howling Commandos had decimated Nazi units and compromised their supply routes.

The captain must not have known that SHIELD had been infiltrated by the Nazis. Hydra Command must have thought the captain betrayed them, resulting in the asset's mission to eliminate the captain and his support personnel. But the asset knows that the captain would never willingly do that. Nazis are bullies. Captain America doesn't like bullies anymore than Steve Rogers did.

Had SHIELD been another division of Hydra, like the Army was? Possible. Hydra was everywhere.

"You still with us, James?" Sam Wilson asks. The asset opens his eyes. He has run out of time. He has no idea how long he has been thinking. "And is it okay if I call you 'James?'"

"Yes, Sergeant."

"You can call me 'Sam,' okay?" The asset looks at him flatly. It's a trap and they both know it. Informalities go down the chains of responsibility and command, not up. He doesn't say anything and the staff sergeant continues. "Mission's over. That's why we're here, we're all kind of in reset. It might be a little different than what you're used to, but we all want to make sure that you feel safe and that you're okay. We're gonna make sure you're taken care of, all right? Nobody here is going to hurt you. Do you understand?"

They're all in reset? The asset startles at this announcement, looking to the captain with concern. Do officers get reset? He hadn't thought they could; resets are part of asset maintenance. They are painful. The asset doesn't want his captain to be strapped into the chair and wiped.

"Miss Potts, the captain doesn't need to be reset," the asset says, his voice taking on a pleading tone. He tries to smile at her, his mouth pulling up on one side, his gaze hopeful. If he can convince Miss Potts, then the captain will be safe. "He heals real fast, ma'am."

Miss Potts looks between the captain and Sam Wilson, her expression unreadable. She crosses one arm over her stomach and brings the other up to press her manicured fingers against her cheek. "Yes, yes, he does, James."

"James?" Sam Wilson draws the asset's attention back to him. "I asked you a question. Do you understand what I've been saying?"

"Yes, Sergeant, I understand."

"Okay. When you don't understand something, I need you to say so. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes, Sergeant," the asset answers. He likes that a clear standard has been set; Sam Wilson and the captain want him to understand things, even though he is not supposed to. The asset is not designed to understand complexities. He is built to destroy. It is what he excels at. He swallows hard. Perhaps they are allowing him room to ask questions because they do not have the reset equipment here at this base. Maybe he will have to dredge up the old protocols and behaviors himself, relying on past triggers. He might even have to learn new ones.

The thought startles the asset, makes him jump and twitch, looking over at the gleaming metal of his empty shoulder port. That can't be right. Rifles don't learn.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12.**

The captain has the technicians return to the room and remove the asset's I.V. so that they can take him back up to see Tony Stark that evening. Miss Potts was called away to take care of something important several hours ago. The asset was surprised that she had spent as much time with them as she did; he thinks that she might have been assessing the team's mission readiness, which must be disappointing. They aren't ready for anything right now. He'll have to find some way to make it up to her so that the captain doesn't get in trouble.

Sam Wilson excuses himself to talk to one of the doctors who has shown up over the last hour, an aging man with a crooked nose and tired eyes behind wire-framed spectacles. The staff sergeant had explained to the captain and the asset that he was not going to 'play therapist' at any point during their stay at the New York base; he had said that he was entirely under-qualified, but that he would stay on 'as a friend' to assist the captain with the asset's care.

The asset has no idea what that means, but it makes the captain smile and wrap his arms around Sam Wilson tightly, prompts him to say 'thank you' in that thick, wet way that he sometimes says things. They tell the asset that it is important that he state his needs so that they can help him recover. He's not sure exactly what he's supposed to be recovering from, but assumes that this is part of the new terminology that goes along with their reset process. Sam Wilson asks him if he understands the concept of 'want.'

The asset snorts wryly, and replies, "I'm damaged, not stupid, Sergeant," which makes both his superiors laugh. Sam Wilson pats him on his flesh and blood shoulder and they part ways. They leave his file with the team of medical technicians and doctors that Sam Wilson is supervising.

He and the captain enter the elevator, and the captain instructs Jarvis to take them to Tony Stark's laboratory. When the doors reopen, the asset follows the captain out, wondering exactly where the building's security cameras are located. Jarvis must be monitoring them on CCTV, speaking to them via hidden intercoms, from the base's command center, but the cameras and microphones are very well concealed. He wonders if he can ask Jarvis things the way that he is supposed to ask Sam Wilson things, or if questions should remain internal to the team.

"Sir, Captain America and Sergeant Barnes are here to see you," Jarvis says as the laboratory doors slide open at their arrival. Tony Stark whirls around from where he was working with several semi-translucent holograms of what look like mission briefing reports. The images and text hover in the air for a moment before they minimize, shrinking down to a thumbprint sized square of light near the surface of the technician's workbench. Tony Stark is wearing an odd looking headset with a faint blue light on it, his shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows. The flimsy chair that the asset had sat in last time is gone and there is a metal work table set up with improvised restraints in its place, the sight of which makes the captain scowl and ask:

"What's going on?"

"You changed Jarvis's settings?" the technician returns without answering, frowning. "He never calls you that."

"Just go with it, Tony. Please."

Tony Stark gestures for them both to take a seat as he settles onto one of the stools that he has rolled over. The asset sits down on the edge of the table, the captain on the stool opposite the technician. There are tools and a thin laptop computer on the metal cart beside the table, along with the asset's left arm. Seeing it again makes him smile briefly before he returns his attention to Tony Stark, who is sighing heavily and has his hands clasped behind his head in a slow stretch of his neck and spine.

"Look, Steve, I'm sure you've got reasons, great reasons even, backed with good intentions and all, but I don't like to be kept in the dark and don't like to build things for bad people. Now, you need to explain to me why you asked me to rebuild a weapon for the guy who killed Fury and shot up downtown D.C.," his tone starts out casual and easy, bubbling and rushing with pent up energy, before sobering intensely. He would be a river, the asset thinks, if rivers were warm; he is all rolling currents and dark rapids, calm waters over jagged rocks, lapping at snow covered shores through the mountains with the train rattling down the tracks above. The asset doesn't think that Howard Stark ever reminded him of a river. Howard Stark -

 _(stands too close to the captain, touches his arm or shoulder under the guise of getting his attention or brushing ash off the captain's immaculate uniform, but Bucky_ knows _that look gets it too sometimes all the time every damn day like Captain America is the only good thing left in this world)_

\- was smoke and engine grease, was expensive liquor and complex machinery, building dreams and death with equal fervor.

The captain looks away from the technician and doesn't say anything. Tony Stark finishes stretching and scoots his seat closer. He nudges the captain's foot with his own to get his attention.

"It's not a weapon," the captain says at last. The asset eyes his commander with confusion. He thinks they are talking about him, but they all know that he is a weapon. Why would the captain lie about that? He is surprised by the idea that the captain can lie at all.

"It's Hydra," Tony Stark reminds him, as though that is a valid argument. His mouth is done up in a self-deprecating smile. It is the first time anyone has actually said it, and the asset has to bite down the -

 _(he doesn't want to comply doesn't want to speak wants to swallow his tongue and choke on it)_

 _(Hail Hydra)_

\- conditioned response _._ It tastes like ashes and old blood in his mouth, cloying like mud and decay. The captain sighs, and Tony Stark lets out a gasp, mockingly apologetic. "Oh, my bad, was that supposed to be a secret?"

"How'd you find all this out?"

"How did you think I _wouldn't_ find out? I have access to _Google_ , Spangles. I searched for 'guy with metal arm' and had Jarvis filter out the video game characters."

"I thought that -"

"What? That during a terrorist attack people magically forget that they have cameras on their cell phones?" Tony Stark huffs a disbelieving laugh. "There's a video of him walking out into the middle of the street in broad daylight to blow up Fury's car on YouTube. Every news station in the country is showing pictures of you two duking it out under that highway overpass. _You_ dumped Shield and Hydra all over the internet. It's not exactly hard to put together."

"Actually, that was Natasha. Did they get a good look at his face?" the captain asks, suddenly concerned. The asset frowns. This is making less and less sense the more they talk. Eliminating Nicholas Fury and Captain America had not been meant as low profile missions. He had been instructed to draw attention, to make a scene, a mess. Why is this technician getting on the captain's case for the asset having followed the orders of his previous commanders? Target selection and mission tactics aren't even part of his primary function. Tony Stark shakes his head at the captain's question.

"No, but thankfully he has this conspicuous _metal arm_ , so I really don't think anyone is going to get their panties in a twist about sticking him in a witness lineup," the technician snaps, anger settling into the tired lines of his face. The asset narrows his eyes at him but holds his tongue. They haven't started maintenance, so he thinks that technically he might be allowed to speak, but he hasn't exactly been hitting center-mass all day. He doesn't like the way that Tony Stark is talking to his captain right now. "What the hell, Steve? You know that they're still dredging bodies up out of the Potomac, right?"

"Bucky -" the captain starts, stops himself abruptly and then tries again. "Sergeant Barnes wasn't responsible for what happened with the helicarriers." There is a warning tone in the captain's voice, in the way that he glares at Tony Stark. The asset bites his lower lip as he watches them. "If you're going to blame someone, you can blame the people behind Project Insight, or you can blame me, because I'm the one who made the call."

"Yeah? And what about for everything else?"

There is silence. It weighs heavy on the asset, cold and accusing. He doesn't understand. He didn't do anything wrong. Those orders had been _wrong_ , he knows that now; Tony Stark shouldn't be trying to convince the captain to punish him for failing that mission. That mission was based on faulty intelligence. He doesn't pick his own targets; his superior officers do. They were wrong to ask him to kill Captain America. It's not his fault that he didn't. The captain's eyes widen, face contorting with rage as his mouth opens in wordless disgust for a moment before he is able to force out a reply:

"He _barely_ remembers his _name,_ you son of a bitch," it comes as a whisper, hanging in the tense air between the two men. The captain is shaking when he reaches forward and takes the asset's hand, interlocking their fingers. It surprises the asset; it is the first real touch the captain has given him since the asset upset him in the medical facility. That warm feeling erupts in his chest, oozes out from a cold spot behind his heart. It is like thawing when he had forgotten he was frozen. His lips part and a shaky exhalation escapes as relief rushes through him. "Do you really think they left him the option to say 'no?'"

The technician rubs at the back of his neck and looks away. "I don't know what I think, Cap. But I know that you're sure as hell not keeping him here in the tow-"

"You don't get a say in that," the asset informs Tony Stark coolly, unable to stop it. He runs his tongue up the inside of his cheek, then over his teeth as the technician boggles at him. The grin and tilt of his head, the upward motion of his brows, is cocky and sure like nothing else about this day is or has been or he thinks will ever be. He's not sure where it comes from. Somewhere in the old code, probably, triggered by the anger and the captain's swearing, the threat of violence simmering just below the surface of their interactions, by feeling his captain's skin on his skin. He's done this before. The asset doesn't know when or why or how he knows that, but he does, and once he's opened his big dumb mouth he can't seem to shut up, because he has always talked too much. "Miss Potts has already approved my transfer. _Sir_."

"Excuse me?"

"She approved my transfer. I'm on the captain's team now. You aren't authorized to send me away. Get over it."

" _Pepper_ is not in charge of the Avengers," Tony Stark says, once he has gotten over his shock. He must not be used to being corrected by an asset. " _She_ does not 'approve' new team members."

 _The Avengers_. So that's what the captain's new team is called. He thinks that the Army division really does end up with the better names. "So call her up. Argue with her. Make her upset. I _dare_ you _,_ " he sneers, leaning forward into the technician's personal space. He's said that before, too. _I dare you._ The words feel familiar, roll out husky and heavy with Brooklyn and old smoke and too much pride -

 _(them's fightin' words)_

 _("You always did like to hear yourself talk.")_

"Bucky, hey, no. Don't," the captain scolds him softly, pulling him back by the hand he's holding. The asset blinks, smoothing his features back out and forcing himself to relax. Not the right response, but not wrong enough to warrant a punishment. The captain is looking at him strangely, like he's aching all over and all inside and the asset is supposed to fix it. Somehow, but he is not designed to fix things. It makes his heart seize up in his chest like he's dying, makes him suck in a harsh breath against the ice in his throat in his lungs crawling through his veins. Is this a punishment? Old programming that he's lost the appropriate response for? Did he used to fix things for Steve Rogers?

 _(no wonder Stevie put him on a train and sent him away; his primary function was always to kill to hurt break destroy he doesn't know anything else can't)_

"You gotta be kidding me. I am the grown up voice of reason on the team right now," Tony Stark announces, throwing his hands up in disbelief, leaning back in his seat. He shoots the asset a look like he wants to throttle him. The moment passes, and the captain turns back to the technician. "Y'know, I never thought I would live to say it, but if this is what it's going to be like without Fury and his secret agent minions, then we are _so_ fucked. The fact that _I_ am the token adult here should frighten you."

"If you want us to leave, Tony, we will, but whether you help me or not, I am not turning Bu- Sergeant Barnes over to the American intelligence community," the captain says, swallowing hard. He grimaces like the action causes him pain. "That's what you're getting at, isn't it? That he should be handed over to the CIA or something? Tell me, do you know who's Hydra in the CIA? In the FBI? How about the rest of the government? Which of the senators in Congress right now are true believers, and who's just in the pocket of someone like Pierce? They. . . they tortured him for _seventy years_ , Tony."

 _Hail Hydra_ , he thinks, starts to mouth, before pressing his tongue against the hard palate behind his teeth with a small, aborted whimper. The captain told him not to. He isn't supposed to speak during this.

"Sure they did, Cap. 'Cause you can prove that he's _that_ James Barnes."

"Th-they froze him, used cryostasis and -"

" _Bullshit_ ," Tony interrupts, slamming a hand down on the metal cart next to them. "That's bullshit, and you know it! Nobody had that kind of technology back then. Shit, we don't have that technology _today_. Steve, if what you're talking about were possible, I would have _invented it_."

"Don't talk to him like that," the asset snarls, his shoulders coming back as he pulls his hand free. He regrets not touching the captain anymore, regrets disobeying, but this needs to stop. He has to make it stop. Nobody talks to his captain like that.

"No, both of you, stop -"

"Or what?" Tony rolls his eyes, ignoring the captain's protests. "You're down an arm, wonder boy, what're you gonna -"

The asset hooks one foot under the base of Tony Stark's stool, sets his other against the center column and pulls, twisting the seat out from under the technician. Tony Stark topples with a yelp, falling heavily to the laboratory floor and landing on his backside.

"Gee, look at that," the asset drawls. He can feel the smug expression taking up residence on his face, pulling his mouth up on one side where he's smirking down at Tony Stark. "Guess I don't need hands at all, huh?"

 _(see what I did there, Stevie?)_

 _"Damnit, Buck, I said knock it off. Quit bein' a jerk!"_

He freezes, eyes going wide and unfocused. The asset isn't sure who said it, because it sounded like Steve Rogers but his first handler isn't there. He thinks maybe it was another memory but it didn't feel like one, didn't have that sense of having happened before like all the other glimpses into his original code. Tony Stark is saying something but it sounds muffled, far away. He doesn't want to be a jerk. He doesn't want _the captain_ to think he's a jerk.

 _(you're the worst, Buck)_

Captain America didn't think he was a jerk when they were in the Howling Commandos. He knows this. Captain America treated him like he was special, important, critical to mission success. He is the favorite rifle, isn't he? Someone told him that he was, once, a long time ago. His vision is dimming around the edges and he clings to the memory, desperate for confirmation.

 _(the soldier tells him not to worry about it; they don't care that the sergeant is the favorite and Cap's real swell about treating them mostly all the same, but none of them would've stormed a base for their brothers, no matter how close they might have been)_

"That's enough, from both of you," the captain is giving them pointedly disappointed looks, when the darkness fades and the laboratory comes back into focus. The asset blinks several times, breathing shallowly through his nose as he tucks his chin down towards his collar. He can't meet the captain's gaze. If he's a jerk, the captain will send him away like Steve Rogers did. He presses his lips together tightly, slightly pursed. He didn't mean to make the captain mad, but Tony Stark didn't have _no_ _right_ to be talkin' like that. The technician was spoilin' for a fight and it wasn't the asset's fault that -

"We've got enough to worry about with Shield in pieces and Hydra goons coming out of the woodwork. I am _not_ going to have you two at each other's throats for the next however-long we're here for. Bucky, Tony is a teammate, and we don't attack our own teammates. Tony, I swear to God, you either help me or stay the hell out of my way."

The asset nods his understanding, not trusting himself to speak. _Jesus_. Jesus _fuck._ He doesn't trust himself to move. If the captain thinks he's a jerk he's going to die, right there, his heart's gonna give out and he's just gonna lay down and never get up ever again. He'd rather eat a bullet than get sent back. The asset can't survive any more train rides. Tony Stark stands up with a wince, rubbing at a sore spot low on his back. "Yeah, because I work so well under duress."

"I'm asking to use your facilities and for you to fix his arm, that's it. That's all I want from you."

"Y'know, I really doubt that's it. You don't know what I know. And there's something you need to know, about that," the technician pauses, motioning to the arm on top of the cart. "You might want to brace yourself for this."

The captain crosses his arms over his chest, leveling the technician with another angry, serious look. He takes a deep breath in through his nose, exhales slowly, and then nods for Tony Stark to continue.

"So, that whole screaming thing we did last night? Turns out it's totally normal."

"What?" The word is sharp, snapped, and the asset closes his eyes. He thinks he dislikes this technician more than the last one, than Howard Stark in 1943. This is exhausting, and he doesn't want the technician to upset the captain anymore. He just wants to get his maintenance and leave.

"This thing is a weapon and it is _designed_ to hurt him, Steve. It has pain receptors, and from what I can tell, sends almost full tactile sensation to wherever it's hooking into his nervous system," Tony Stark explains. "I think I've fixed it so that it won't be bloody and messy, but that's all I've done. I fixedit so that it works like it's _supposed_ to, which is sadistic as _fuck_."

"You could build him another one," the captain's voice is unsteady, accusatory.

"I could, but you just told me that you weren't asking me to."

"Well, I'm asking you now."

"I won't. I don't build weapons for Hydra."

"You've got no soul, Stark," the captain's voice cracks on the name, and the asset can tell that he's going to cry, can feel the way the captain trembles next to him even if he can't see it. This isn't something he wants to see. He keeps his eyes closed, reaches for the captain's hand once more. "They _tortured_ him for _seventy years_. They _made_ him do those things, kill those people. Nobody can hold out against seventy years of torture and brainwashing and indoctrination."

"You cannot prove that this man and the man you have a file on are the same person. The _only_ thing you have connecting them is this. . . Satan's prosthetic and some surgery that could absolutely be replicated."

"I hate you," the captain says in a hoarse whisper.

"Not yet you don't, Cap," the technician says, and his voice is quieter, softer, almost apologetic. "Because even if I wasn't going to reattach this monster, I still need to dig into your bionic boyfriend tonight; I gotta get into that shoulder port to make sure I didn't screw anything up when we took it off."

" _Fuck you_."

One of his previous handlers had made the asset low crawl through strands of razor wire. It cut his clothes to shreds, caught briefly on his skin before pulling through. Sweat and dirt stung in his wounds as he worked his way to the other side with agonizingly deliberate movements. The asset had come out the other side streaked red, breathing heavy, unrecognizable where the barbs had sliced at him until one side of his face hung off his skull in dark clumps and wet strips.

That was nothing compared to being forced to listen to the captain sob out curses brokenly next to him.

"We need to restrain him, Steve."

"I will kill you if you touch him."

"Then _you_ need to restrain him, and let me reattach his arm."

He thinks for a moment that the captain is going to deny his request, but he doesn't. The captain doesn't say anything, just makes another, awful sound in his throat. There is a change in the laboratory's atmosphere, subtle but powerful. The technician instructs the asset to remove his shirt and lie back on the table. He complies, keeping his eyes closed. Shaky hands begin to strap him down, legs first, then his arm.

"You okay, Buck?" the captain asks, voice wrecked, and the asset nods. The bonds are secure, but not tight, pinning him to the table. There is a stretch of flat black webbing that circles the table and the asset's torso to keep him from arching up off it. The captain checks and rechecks the restraints, testing each knot or carabiner or buckle for the second time, then third. He asks the asset several times if they are too tight, reminding the asset that he will be right there the whole time. "I'm sorry. I know it's going to hurt, but I'll be right here, okay, Bucky? If it gets to be too much -"

The asset shakes his head from side to side. He can handle this. He always has in the past. The captain sounds like he's bleeding out. The asset cannot open his eyes. He does not want to see this. "Okay. Are you ready?"

"Sir, I will require a bite guard," the asset tells the captain, and he can feel the man flinch away. The captain sobs again, tries to swallow it and fails. The asset furrows his brows, frowning, confused. Is he not supposed to request one? This is going to hurt. He doesn't want to crack his teeth, and having something in his mouth will help keep him from breaking his own jaw, which he thinks he has done before at some point.

The asset opens his mouth wordlessly after a moment's hesitation, and the captain slips the familiar soft plastic between his teeth. His fingertips brush across the asset's lower lip for a second as he pulls his hand away. It sends a jolting tingle through him, and the asset tries to sit up to chase it reflexively but the captain has already withdrawn and the straps hold him back. A frustrated sound escapes him, and he flexes his mouth around the guard, biting down hard. The plastic is hot, pliable, molding to the shape of his teeth.

He misses the feeling of the captain's fingers, brief as it was.

"Are _you_ ready for this, Steve?" Tony Stark asks. Hands are placed very gently on the asset's face, thumbs settling at his temples, the ridge of the captain's palms covering his cheekbones, fingertips brushing past the stretched corners of his lips. He thinks that the captain must have moved to stand near the head of the table. The asset hums, a pleasant rumble coming up from deep in his throat, muffled around the guard. He relaxes his neck, lets his head lay back against the table. The captain holds him still, keeps him from turning.

"No. But I won't ever be, so you might as well get this over with." The captain will keep him from bashing his skull open when he starts to convulse. He takes a deep breath through his nose, and prepares himself for the pain.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note:** Brace yourself for some more metal arm torture. Also, Tony's mention of a manual is a reference to roguewrld's story  Always Stay Near Me, For Tomorrow I Will Have Much To Do, which you can find on AO3. I think a technical manual/user's guide for the Winter Soldier is highly intriguing. If you haven't read it, you totally should because it's a great fic (big thanks to Cicerothewriter for the rec!).

* * *

 **Chapter 13.**

"All right, Terminator, I'm going to poke around in here and do some repairs," Tony Stark tells him from the seat on his left. His voice is tight, and he still sounds a little tense from the earlier argument. The forced break in the conversation when they had to strap the asset to the table seems to have helped the technician regain his composure and some of his nonchalance. "I pulled some data from your arm, so we're going to see if I can hook into whatever software it's connecting to in your body once I get it back on. Y'know, see what else we can find."

"Data?" the captain asks. Sticky electrode pads are pressed onto the asset's chest; they are smooth and lack the sharp bite of metal barbs that he is familiar with. "Like what?"

"Looked like a maintenance log, lots of time stamps. We're still decrypting and translating it."

The asset tries to keep his body relaxed, tries to focus on the captain's hands. They are hot and sweaty and calloused from too many fights in alleyways and bombed out cities, from pencils and sketchbooks and paintbrushes. The ridges of his palms are rough from pistol grips and the wear of wet gloves during the winter of '44 -

The technician is working a tool into his shoulder port and the asset loses the train of thought, the beginnings of a confusing memory. Pain shoots through the metal, lancing down his collarbone into his ribs. He clenches his fist and bites down harder on the plastic mouth guard, breathing heavy through his nose.

"That's why you wanted to get into his shoulder tonight." Accusatory, still furious.

"Because I have no soul, right? I'm an awful human being with no redeeming qualities? Keep going, Cap; it's not like I haven't heard it before and since I'm heartless, you can't exactly hurt my delicate feelings. Not like I'd know anything about having a gaping, open hole in my torso with wires and cables coming out of it, right?" It's a deflection, an attempt at self-deprecating humor, a little too bitter to actually be funny.

The captain huffs a sigh, presses his lips down on the asset's forehead just above one eyebrow. It elicits a small whimper from his throat when the captain pulls back to whisper, "You're doin' great, Buck. I'm so sorry it hurts, but it's gonna be over soon."

Being quiet is good. If he stays quiet, if he can just stay still, the captain will praise him. He is so hungry for it, so desperate to hear his captain tell him that he is good, doing well, not a jerk at all -

Tony Stark is pulling the plates open to get further into the shoulder, slow aches creeping through the artificial connections to his central nervous system, coiling along his spine for a moment before stabbing upward into his brain. His muscles contract involuntarily, back arching as much as the restraints will allow as something explodes across the sensors in the joint.

"Steady, steady -"

 _(Captain Pierce says, laughing at him, the heel of a boot pressing down on the back of the asset's neck, his face smeared with red gore and jungle mud, teeth chipped and jaw dislocated)_

"- I think I got it."

The captain keeps his head from lifting up and crashing back down onto the table. He tries to pull away but can't, has to settle for groaning and pressing his shoulder blades back because there's nowhere to escape to. There's a spark, something sliding out of him like a long scorching wire, and the moment passes. He feels cold in his core in the aftermath, tiny tendrils of ice from the metal grafted to his bones reaching out towards his internal organs. Sweat breaks out across his face and chest.

He must not scream.

"There we go. See? Not so bad," the technician reassures him, though he's not actually sure if Tony Stark is speaking to him or the captain. The asset can hear things being rearranged on the cart while the man gets the next item he needs. "Most of the nightmare fuel seems limited to the arm itself."

"What was that?" Something has changed in the captain's voice. He sounds uncertain, like his anger is dissipating the longer he looks at whatever Tony Stark has removed from the asset.

"If I'm right, which I am, by the way, I just took out the tracking device Hydra had imbedded in his body. Which you totally didn't even bother to wonder about, did you?"

"Jesus. . .I'm sorry, Tony," the captain says after some hesitation. Tony Stark pauses and the laboratory feels oddly quiet. It makes the asset all too aware of his body and the way the restraints creak when he shifts. "I don't. . . I mean, I didn't. . . I shouldn't have said those things earlier. I don't know what I'm doing, and I owe you and Pepper a lot. If you weren't helping me, we would probably still be sitting at Sam's kitchen table."

"Have you slept? Like at all?"

"In the hospital. Does that count?" The asset opens his eyes, and the captain smiles down at him. It is a sad smile, bordering on punishing. It is wet. God, why do his eyes always look _so_ _wet_ , so red around the rims? The asset cannot look at them for long because it hurts too deeply, feels like too much. It is unbearable and strange. At least he knows the pain from his arm, recognizes it and knows he can endure it because he always has in the past. His vision unfocuses and slides past the captain's face saying, "Hey, you."

The asset switches targets, his attention on the technician's work and the maintenance he is undergoing. Suspended above them is a blue hologram of some portion of the asset's body. He thinks it is his metal framework, but there is something that looks webbed and too thin to be bone. Circuitry maybe. His veins and arterial system, perhaps. He has no idea. Tony Stark is rotating it, zooming in and out in different places as he examines it. His fingers have calibration fluid on them, the light from the image catching on the thin coat of oil, makes him look shiny.

"Y'know, when I brought Pepper back after that whole Aim mess, I didn't sleep for like, two weeks. All I did was work on stabilizing the formula. I was such a dick, even Jarvis got short with me."

"Sir, I would never," the voice interjects politely from some unseen place. The captain laughs a little at that and shakes his head as he drops it slightly lower. His lips brush the damp skin at the asset's hairline. The asset bites down harder, swallows a soft cry. He would stay on the table forever, he thinks, if it meant the captain would continue to reward him like this.

"Basically, I'm saying that I _get it_ , Steve." The technician turns away from the hologram and wipes off his hands before picking up the metal arm. He has to lift it with both hands to maneuver it into position, letting it rest on the table beside the asset's body. Once in place, the technician begins to hook the wires back up. Each new connection sends a painful jolt through the asset's system, makes his skin twitch and legs jump under the restraints. His vision feels distorted, colors and shapes suddenly fuzzy and soft-edged under unshed tears.

He must not cry. His training is better than this, he thinks. He hopes that after the maintenance is complete, his control will be restored.

"We're all stressed out. And when we're scared about losing what's most important, we make bad judgement calls. You think I don't know that? My first Ph.D was in terrible decisions."

"And here I thought it was in computer sciences," the captain murmurs, then pulls back just enough to survey the asset's face. "Hey, hey, focus on me, okay? I got you, Bucky. You're gonna be okay. We're almost done. Right?"

Of course he is going to be okay. The captain has him. His handler will take care of him, will make sure that he gets what he needs to function efficiently. The technician makes a noncommittal noise and moves his laptop over next, opening it and connecting to the arm via a dark cable that he runs to an access port under one of the plates just above the curve of the asset's artificial bicep.

"Electrical engineering, actually. Just. . . just trust me, okay? We need to cover all our bases. You might not like it, but we still have to check."

"I do trust you. I just. . . I'm just mad and I don't like feeling helpless. What else do you think you're going to find?"

The technician shrugs, and activates a program before turning back to the asset. He slides the arm back into the joint where it catches, clicks, tightens and locks into place with a hiss. The asset's breath hitches dangerously, heart stumbling up into his throat to choke him. His lungs are filling with ice and old rot and there's acid creeping up from his gut. He thinks, for a moment, that he's going to die.

But the captain is still touching his face, is still holding him down. If he dies, it would be bad. The captain would stop if he was dead, and he doesn't want to be bad anymore. His eyes roll up a little, and he blinks back the tears. The captain strokes the asset's temples with his thumbs, whispering so gently that he can't make out the words. It doesn't matter. He could say anything in that tone, paired with that touch, and it would be pleasant, would still fill the asset with that hungry warmth.

There is electricity dancing up the length of the arm, causing the plates to shift soundlessly and separate as it recalibrates. He's trembling all over as the aftershocks roll through his body, like waves crashing on the river shore, like the train rattling away through the mountain pass far above him. There are snowflakes caught in his eyelashes and blood freezing on his mouth. He can't feel his left arm at all.

The asset tries to blink the memory away the same way he did with the tears, but it's harder. Everything is white and red and black black black around the edges as he fades. He is panting into the bite guard, his jaw aching, sweat burning where it drips into his eyes. There is something blue above him. He focuses on that, on the color, because blue is safe and -

 _(flashes of it as they cut into him again, strapped into the chair with his head locked in a vice, his eyes held open wide and the recording playing over and over and over again, Stevie's voice in his ear whispering)_

\- good and it was always his favorite, he thinks.

"Who knows? Another copy of his medical file, maybe, or a record of his missions," the technician is saying as he taps at his keyboard. "Shit, maybe they stored a user's manual in there, a list of command codes and trigger phrases. Maybe there won't be anything."

Something skips along the synapses, sizzles in the back of his throat and smells like blood under skin that has been pulled back and back and back but there's nothing underneath. There was never anything underneath, just black ice and more death. He tries to beg them to stop but the words get stuck, come out a pathetic whimper through teeth clenched down into plastic. He is in the chair again. The headset is heavy and keeps him from turning his head.

No. No, that isn't right. He is strapped down on a metal table. Someone has their hands on his face. A technician is pulling something out of him, and while he doesn't feel it he _knows_ it, somehow, in the way that he seems to know so much and nothing at all. They are going to pull the code and the protocols and all the things that make him useful out.

That's when it hits him – center-mass, point-blank range - because, _oh God, there isn't anything underneath_. He will be ashes and decay and frayed threads of dead men when his skin burns away under the technician's scrutiny and he bleeds out on the table. The asset will be empty inside without his missions, was always empty on the inside, and when he runs out of bullets they'll rack him in the ice and the captain won't touch him anymore won't ever tell him he's good again because empty guns are useless.

He cannot afford to be useless. He must hold onto the code. Somewhere in that choppy haze of half-remembered moments with his first handler is a mission, his first mission. He knows this. His initial settings are all in there and if he can just _get to them_ , can just _find_ thatpurposeagain, everything will be okay.

"He's not - "

"You have no idea what he is," Tony Stark interrupts. But that doesn't make any sense, because everyone knows that he is Captain America's sniper. It said so in the Smithsonian. The asset is the favorite rifle. Please, God, sweet Jesus and Holy Mother Mary, let him stay the favorite rifle. He swears on something he doesn't understand to work hard, try his absolute very best to be good like he was before, so long as they let him keep the fragments of the old programming. "You know what he _was_ , at best. None of us have any idea what they did to him. I have dealt with people who are weapons, Steve. Killian turned Pepper into a bomb, and he only had her for a few days. If he is who you say he is. . . What do you think Hydra could do to a man over seventy years?"

 _(they make him a monster a weapon all blade-edge and gun smoke and)_

 _(Hail Hydra)_

The captain doesn't answer.

"That's why you trust me with this, isn't it? Because some part of you can admit that he doesn't need a doctor, he needs a _mechanic_."

What he _needs_ is to get the fuck off this table, time _right the hell now_.

"Jarvis, how we doin'?"

"Heart rate is rising, sir, but Sergeant Barnes appears to be in no real danger at this -"

"He is _not_ a _bomb_ , Tony."

 _(Dr. Ivanov smiles down at him as the dull teeth of the saw bite through the meat of his arm, scrape into the jagged remains of the bone, whispers fanatically, "The training is hard, my brother")_

 _(Armin Zola presses dry lips to his forehead, empty syringe in hand, "The procedure has already started: you are to be the new fist of Hydra")_

No. No no no no nononono -

 _(Hail Hydra)_

He is not a bomb, not a fist, not a brother. He is a rifle, smoothbore and blued steel. But what was he before? Steve Rogers had no need for a sniper; the asset had been sent away to become one of those. He tries to remember. What was Hydra using him for before Europe? Nothing comes to him.

There's no more electricity in his body, just little jerks and twitches along the arm as it goes through its regular startup procedures. No malfunction, no system breach warning flashing behind his eyes and his ears aren't ringing like a grenade has gone off too close. Adrenaline is forcing the ice in his veins to move. His heart is pounding in his chest like engine pistons. He hurts all over. The familiarity of it helps to calm him.

"Jarvis, what do we got, talk to me."

"Sir, the arm has been fully reconnected. There are no additional files or programs that I can interface with. A new data entry has been automatically uploaded to the file we previously encountered; it has a current time stamp."

The asset takes a deep, shaky breath in through his nose and starts to relax his jaw at last. He is fine. Totally okay, just like the captain said he would be. His arm is back and repaired and the technician didn't take anything. He is not empty; he is full of winter and death and agony, of sights and sounds and confusing flashes of a fractured past. The captain is still touching him. Everything is good.

"Damnit." The technician snaps the laptop closed and rips his headset off, dropping it on the metal cart before running his hand over his face with a sigh. The hologram that had been hanging over the asset flatlines and then disappears from view entirely. He can feel the captain tugging the restraints loose, the electrodes off, pulling him up into a sitting position on the table. The two men are unable to look at one another now that the asset is no longer laying down. "Well, maybe I'm not right all the time. Can't be right all the time, really, it would get boring and then I'd probably just be wrong on purpose."

" _Tony_ ," the captain says it as a warning, but Tony Stark doesn't even have the wherewithal to hesitate.

"I still think he's dangerous, even if he doesn't have a self-destruct button or remote access control."

"Your best friend turns into a giant green rage monster and your girlfriend can breathe fire, Tony."

At this, the technician does pause, then sighs dramatically and draws a hand over his face again with a groan.

" _Okay,_ okay, point taken. Hey, Inspector Gadget?" Tony Stark's hand hovers in the air between himself and the asset. This time, it is his right, so that the asset will have to use his flesh and blood hand to respond in kind. He wonders if this is supposed to be a sign of goodwill, or if the technician is just concerned that the asset will destroy the offered limb if they use the left. The new nickname is even more obnoxious than the last; the asset is a sergeant, not an inspector. "We good?"

He still has the bite guard in. A part of him had been hoping that the captain would remove it for him, would thumb over his lower lip or press his fingers into the asset's mouth. The captain has made no move to do either of those things, though. It would have felt nice to have some part of the captain against his tongue. He doesn't think that he has ever been good enough for that kind of a reward before; perhaps if he had squirmed less it might have been an option. The asset reaches up and eases the plastic out, runs his tongue over his teeth as he takes Tony Stark's hand in a firm shake.

"I'm good," the asset confirms, and has to bite the inside of his cheek so that he doesn't add, _but you're a jerk, and I'm telling Miss Potts_. Even thinking it makes his mouth twist up smugly.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note:** Warning for all my Red Room feels. Everything hurts in this chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 14.**

The asset is not sleeping.

His gaze shifts, looking away from a spot of discoloration in the paint of the far wall to glance at the closed door. This is the first time he has moved other than to blink in four hours. The seated position on the edge of the bed - not his bed because assets do not need beds but not the captain's bed either - with his knees bent at a ninety-degree angle, back straight and shoulders back, palms resting flat on the tops of his thighs, is the same one he took when the captain left him in this room. He was told this would be his room while they stayed at the base, but this cannot be his room because assets do not need doors or locks or blankets. This is part of the captain's quarters and not the barracks and the captain isn't here.

And the captain isn't here.

The captain isn't -

 _(coming no one is coming no one)_

\- isn't _here_ and this is a stupid fucking place and he _hates_ it why is he even -

Steady breath in. Heart beat slows back down, preparing for a trigger squeeze he isn't going to make. Controlled exhale. His right hand closes on top of his thigh when the breath bottoms out. The metal arm remains still, better trained than his flesh ever was.

He has not slept, will not sleep. He was not instructed to sleep, only to rest. They will talk in the morning. The asset is waiting to be retrieved, waiting to be pulled from the rack and back in his captain's hands again, to be pointed at targets and allowed to destroy.

Breathe in. Wait. He's good at this part.

This is another test, he thinks, like the cup with the liquid. The asset is unlikely to fail. He has stayed in position for days on end for a mission without giving away his location, without ever once moving.

Breathe out. Easy. This is nothing.

 _(I can do this all day)_

The asset blinks slowly at the door, listening for the sound of movement from the other side that had caught his attention. Chairs scuffing on tile, glasses clinking, soft voices in the floor's kitchen. This room is closer to the kitchen than the captain's room had been, is on the opposite side of the floor. There is a staggering amount of space between him and the captain and it makes him feel ill.

His head hurts. The malfunction is back in his abdomen. He's pretty sure that it's there because he had done something wrong, missed a response on the elevator ride back up to the captain's quarters and failed to comply with the new protocols. It makes sense that the captain did not hold him again, had to punish him. His behavior during the last twenty-four hours has not been deserving of reward.

Competent subordinates do not interrupt their superiors or lie to Command. Expert weapons do not upset their handlers. Good assets are not jerks.

 _Christ_ , he's tired. His body doesn't even hurt but he aches in deep places behind his eyes at the bottom of his lungs buried in the marrow of his fuckin' bones with all the ice. The code makes him tired. Makes him want to sleep, want to curl up in dark warm spaces with the captain's strong back pressed tight to the asset's chest. Wants to slide his hands over the captain's skin, make him beg and moan and. . . and. . . The asset loses the train of thought, unsure where it was headed.

He wants to stand and rip the door from its hinges, wants to stalk through the base until he can put his metal hand around the captain's throat and squeeze until he gasps _and_ -

 _(choking on air and panic and terror and there's blood on Stevie's mouth flecks of red on his chin on his shirt on both their hands why won't he get up he always gets up)_

\- and. . . and. . . And.

Inhale. His right hand won't stop shaking.

Exhale. He watches the door and waits.

* * *

The asset spends the majority of the next day on the medical floor with the team of doctors and technicians Miss Potts has assembled. Sam Wilson introduces him to several of them, but he does not bother to retain their names once he understands that Dr. Santini is in charge of the physical aspects of his reset. They discuss his dietary needs and ask him about the foreign compounds found in his blood samples. Dr. Santini questions him on how he processes tactile sensations, how sensitive or receptive he is to various stimuli, and whether or not the asset can recall any of his medical history. They ask him to describe the kind of medical treatment he received when he was on the other teams or at the Hydra labs between assignments.

He answers to the best of his abilities until he notices the captain's discomfort. His responses are upsetting, though he doesn't know why, and so he stops speaking altogether. When Dr. Santini concludes their meeting, the asset is taken to meet Dr. Faber. Sam Wilson explains that Dr. Faber is a 'therapist' – which means absolutely nothing to the asset – and will be overseeing the psychological aspects of his reset.

That does strike him as odd. The asset has never before needed a doctor for that. In fact, he hadn't even known that there was a psychological aspect to his reset. He supposes that, normally, there isn't; he's just wiped and iced, reprogrammed for the next handler, briefed on his new targets, and sent back into the field.

The captain and Sam Wilson leave the asset with the doctor to conduct something called an 'intake interview.'

Dr. Faber puts the asset through a series of tests she claims will help her establish a 'starting point' for the asset's treatment. He is given a long list of nonsensical questions to answer and then the doctor has him look at pictures of black ink blots and asks him what he sees. When he answers honestly, he is told to look again; the doctor wants to know what the asset sees _in_ the ink, or what the ink makes him _think of_. He doesn't see anything in the ink. It makes him nervous.

The asset ends up lying. He spends several minutes per picture talking about blood spatter patterns and describing the kind of weapon used and the necessary force behind blows because he can't think of anything else to say. The doctor never looks uncomfortable or upset the way that the captain did, so he includes as many details as he can think of in the hope that his answers will be sufficient.

Next, he is shown a series of cards with various depictions of people interacting with objects. The asset is instructed to narrate stories surrounding the events unfolding on the card. He tells her what he sees – two men in civilian clothes outside a building, a woman holding a bag, someone small with a dog – and is asked to elaborate. Motivations. Histories. _Bullshit_.

He feeds her some vague lines in the hope that she will put the cards away. The two men are undercover Hydra operatives conducting a leader's recon of the building's defenses before returning to the assembly area where the rest of their team is waiting. There are six men on the team. The woman is an agent and the bag contains stolen information and her target's fingers that she is transporting to the technicians back at the laboratory. He tells Dr. Faber that the woman is a skilled dancer.

The last picture is the hardest. He has no idea what the hell she wants him to say about the small person with the dog and the whole session feels like a waste of time. His body is tense and he's nervous and he can't figure out why she hasn't struck him yet for failing to respond appropriately. This is stupid. What the fuck does 'appropriate' even sound like? This whole fucking base is stupid and the asset doesn't want to comply anymore. He thinks that if he stops complying they might send the captain back in to punish him.

Or they might just starve him and leave him in solitary. That seems to be the preferred method around here, much to the asset's dismay. He'd rather make up bullshit for this doctor than have to go another night without the captain's touch.

"She's running away," the asset finally says, touching the small person on the card, tracing the shape of its torso with his gloved fingers. Sam Wilson gave him gloves that morning, black like his old gloves but full fingered, tactical and snug. Shooting gloves. They don't want all the base support staff to see his arm.

 _("When did this happen?" the staff sergeant asks, raises a brow and gestures to the metal arm questioningly)_

 _(the plates shift silently, smoke and old memories greasing the joints and he doesn't know when because this isn't the original but he's had so many upgrades they all blur together into one long continuous nightmare)_

 _("L-las. . . Last. . . night. Last night. Sergeant Barnes," the captain chokes on the words, like they're caught up in his throat and wrapped in wires that scrape at his mouth as he fumbles them out, "We. . . We reattached it last night. Don't you remember?")_

That's not unusual. The asset knows that his existence is classified, that access to the Winter Soldier Project is strictly controlled within Hydra. The rest of the arm is obscured by the long sleeve shirt he was instructed to wear by the captain. The shirt is blue and soft and has an overlapping placket with four buttons beneath the round collarless neckline. His jeans and belt are borrowed. The boots still smell vaguely of the Potomac.

"From what, James?" Dr. Faber asks. All the doctors call him 'James.' "What is she running away from?"

He stares at the card. There's no reason for the small person to be a 'she.' The hair is short, the body flat and blocky and without any notable characteristics of either gender. It is not a woman. He stares at the dog, but doesn't see the dog on the card. They had larger dogs at the base she is running from, huge and black and white with heavy coats to protect them from the cold. The winter is always harsh there.

"It snows in Sosnogorsk," the asset explains, looks up from the card to meet the doctor's eyes. "The base. It's in Sosnogorsk, behind the railway and away from the mines and the work camps. She is running away."

The asset can feel the memory there, on the back of his tongue. It's part of the code but not the oldest part, the rusty dirty part he dredges up from his time with Steve Rogers or Captain America. He doesn't think that he's supposed to talk about this because he wasn't supposed to talk to anyone back then. He's always had a big mouth and if he speaks to anyone but his handler or the матрона he'll be punished -

 _(he could break the shackles but he'll be in so much trouble)_

 _(they're small so small and he doesn't mean to doesn't want to)_

 _("James Buchanan, what do you think you're doing")_

But he doesn't belong to General Lukin anymore. The матрона is not here. It's just him and the doctor, and Dr. Faber isn't Dr. Ivanov, so he keeps at it, explaining the imagery as he turns it over in his head like he's turning the card over and over in his hands. She smiles at him. He thinks of blood and teeth and long hair tangling in his fingers.

"The training is hard, and they have to focus. The матрона makes them comply. She is running away because she doesn't like to dance, doesn't like to kill, is tired of being chained to beds and fighting and hurting."

He misses his knives and his guns and the weaponry and armor they equip him with. He misses the cold of cryostasis, the certainty of the reset. Dr. Faber stops smiling.

"The training is hard," he says again, and sets the card back down on the low table between them. The asset leans back in his seat, face impassive as he stares at the doctor. "When they fail, I carry their bodies out into the snow and take them apart for the dogs. Two guards starve to death, but we don't lose any of the dogs and the матрона tells me I am doing good work."

There's a pause. Dr. Faber swallows hard.

"Is this something you remember?" she asks.

 _("Sergeant._ Barnes. _Do you_ remember _?")_

"When she tries to run away, they won't send the dogs out first."

"James?"

"They'll send me. They always send me."

Dr. Faber puts the cards away.


	15. Chapter 15

That evening, while the captain is gone, Sam Wilson teaches him how to prepare his own liquid meals. The asset doesn't remember the conversation with Doctor Santini about his required caloric intake, but the staff sergeant does. They've moved him to thicker liquids because of it; Sam Wilson complained that the asset couldn't be expected to consume six thousand calories from broth alone if they're trying to keep him off an I.V. and feeding tube.

Sam Wilson and Doctor Faber expect the asset to be responsible for his own daily upkeep, though they do not use that term anymore. They call it 'self-care' and 'personal hygiene' now. It's strange, he thinks, because checks and services are performed by operators. He is a rifle. Hydra issued him to Captain America. Therefore, the captain should be the one to correct his deficiencies and ensure that he remains mission capable.

Except that doesn't sound right, either. The captain is. . . the captain is _busy_ , is an officer and has additional duties on the team. He has to lead and plan and ensure the safety and care of all his assets and teammates. The captain has to receive missions from Command and report back on their progress. That's why he has a staff sergeant to assist him. That's why the Army has non-commissioned officers.

He wonders if there are any soldiers on the team. Soldiers would mean that the asset has a non-combat function while at the base. Sergeants take care of soldiers. The asset has been assigned subordinate soldiers before. He thinks he had soldiers the last time he was on an Army team, but he cannot remember. Was the last time when he was a member of the Howling Commandos?

No. No, the last time he was in the Army under a captain he didn't have to worry about classes of supply, about fuel and food and distributing combat loads. Captain Pierce handled logistics. There were no soldiers or agents with them. He doesn't recall the name of that team. None of his other handlers or superiors were captains. There weren't many battle captains outside of the Army, and there were no non-commissioned officers on any of the Hydra STRIKE teams.

The Avengers fall under the Army division. Miss Potts is the Command-level officer for this branch of Hydra. They have a captain and a staff sergeant and a sergeant and many support personnel. Sam Wilson is -

 _(a strafing run of machine gun fire, blunt-force trauma and tactical bombing, metal wings tucked in for the dive)_

\- the backbone of the team. The captain relies on him to handle the specifics of property accountability, and he is more than capable of taking care of the asset and teaching him the Avengers protocols and operating procedures. Sam Wilson uses words and glances to coax responses from the asset, subtle signals that action is required. New triggers and behavioral codes the asset needs to learn. The staff sergeant has a way of watching the asset that means he is waiting for a reply. It is immensely, impossibly patient, like the long stretches of silence don't matter at all.

The captain comes back to their floor two hours after the assets, his hair wet and the back of his neck still damp. His knuckles are pink, skin freshly healed. There are faint blood smears on his khakis, like he wiped his hands on the fabric at his thighs and hips. It draws the asset's attention, but Sam Wilson doesn't say anything so he doesn't ask.

They construct an operational timeline for the asset to follow during reset. He likes that, likes the structure of it, the simplicity. Timelines are very familiar. They make the reset feel more like a mission. Meet with the medical team. Attend sessions with Doctor Faber. Eat. Rest. Recover.

 _(what the hell is he recovering from?)_

Not all of the orders make sense. He is told to eat when hungry, but his hunger has nothing to do with food. The asset does not think it can be satisfied like that. He tries to obey anyway. The asset drains cup after cup of liquid that night until he throws up, traitorous body heaving the contents back into the glass. Some of it hits the marble top of the flat bar where he is seated. He tries to lick it up because he wants to comply but Captain America does not allow it. The captain makes him put the glass down, pulls the asset sideways on the tall chair to lean into the warmth of his torso, rubbing gently at his back while speaking softly:

"Stop, stop, it's okay, Buck, you don't have to keep drinking. Just stop. Breathe. Breathe for me, Bucky."

It might be the easiest, most satisfying order he has ever been given. _Breathe for me_. He can do that. It feels good to obey, and if he has failed this test then it is the best failure of his life. His throat burns and there's vomit in his nose and hanging off his wet lips and the captain is touching him again. _Thank you_ , he wants to say, but the words catch and won't come out. _Thank you_.

The captain leads him to the kitchen sink to clean him up, one arm around the asset's shoulders as he wipes at the asset's face with a damp dish towel, standing slightly behind and pressing into him. He makes the asset rinse his mouth and spit several times. They spend several long moments standing there afterwards, with the captain stroking his hair and murmuring soothingly, lips brushing the shell of the asset's ear:

"I've got you, Bucky -"

 _(You're gonna be okay I won't let anything happen to you Buck you're safe here)_

 _(his shoulder is bleeding and his spine convulses and he can't stop shaking can't even scream because)_

"- I've got you."

After that, the staff sergeant removes the stipulation that the asset must eat when hungry. Sam Wilson is cleaning the counter when he says they'll work on identifying hunger in the asset's sessions with Doctor Faber. For now, he is instructed to drink water and eat at scheduled intervals throughout the day. The asset nods absently. He doesn't have any trouble identifying hunger, but it's hard to think right now with the captain's mouth so close to his skin and the man's fingers carding through his hair. He is being held like he is something precious, something good. The captain does not punish him for failing or for making a mess.

It occurs to the asset that he hasn't seen the captain punish Sam Wilson, either. The staff sergeant doesn't have much sense for military customs and courtesies, smiling often and failing to use the proper titles or honorifics when speaking to the captain. He doesn't come to attention when the captain enters the room, calls him 'Cap,' and never uses 'sir.' The captain does not correct him. On any other team, Sam Wilson would have been beaten or wiped clean and reprogrammed.

He doesn't know what that means. Sam Wilson is not Captain America's favorite because _he_ is the prized rifle. The thought ignites an old ache in his joints, across the swell of each palm, lodged deep in his lungs with all the icy remains of whatever he used to be. The captain cannot have two favorites.

"Sergeant Barnes," the captain starts to say, his voice cutting through the asset's thoughts. The asset goes very still, shoulders back and spine straightening automatically. They are quiet for what feels like days before his commander finally continues. The captain takes a deep breath in through his nose, eyes closing. It looks like he's gathering himself for something, but the asset doesn't know what. He exhales slowly and opens his eyes. "Do you. . . do you even want me to call you that? Should I call you something else?"

The question startles him. None of his other superiors have ever bothered to ask. He leans back into the captain's chest, gripping the rim of the kitchen sink hard as he tries to settle himself. His own breath is coming hard and fast and his stomach is still churning. The captain feels strong and steady behind him. He wants to keep him there, with those arms wrapped around him. "Sir?"

"What do you want me to call you? I've been calling you 'Bucky' and 'Sergeant Barnes,' but I should have asked first."

"I was a sergeant while assigned to the Howling Commandos," the asset replies slowly, uncertain. He's not sure he understands the question. Is he supposed to ask for clarification? Sam Wilson and Captain America said they wanted him to understand things as part of his reset. New protocols for the new team. But his training clamps down as he opens his mouth, the previous commander's parameters still firmly set in his programming. He says instead, "On past assignments, I have received new designations upon completion of reset, sir."

He looks back just in time to see the punishing expression the captain makes at that statement. It feels like bones breaking and the ground rushing up to meet him as he falls. "That's not what I asked," the captain says, shaking his head. "I asked what you wanted."

Oh. Of course. Sam Wilson had made it very clear that the asset needed to understand the concept of 'want' while he was on this team.

". . . _Bucky_ ," the asset answers quietly, and he knows that it was the right thing to say because of the way the tension eases out of the captain's posture. The way the captain smiles at him, relief and hope and something that the asset can't identify. "I want you to call me 'Bucky,' sir."

"Do you want me to call you that, too?" Sam Wilson asks. The asset shakes his head.

"No, Sergeant. Only Captain America and Steve Rogers call me that."

The captain makes a choked, sad sound, burying his face in the asset's hair. It's the wrong answer. But the captain doesn't let him go and the asset doesn't know how to fix it. "Do you think this is an assignment, Buck?" he whispers, and his voice hurts, is hurt, and it's all the asset's fault because he's awful _he's the worst_ and he doesn't know what he said or what to do, what to say or how to make this better.

He _feels so much_ right now. Captain America always makes him feel so much, too much, like there's something inside, something more than winter and wind and metal. The asset whimpers. He doesn't understand how this conditioning is supposed to work. _God_ , he just wants to _be good_ for his captain, but this contact is confusing and doesn't follow the rules. The captain is touching him and hurting him, rewarding and punishing and it all leaves him reeling. It feels like everything, like dried salt and sea spray on his skin, like the slow drag through the snow while bleeding out, like glimpsing the sky far above like hope like safety like salvation and forgiveness and -

 _(strapped to the table why won't they let him stay dead)_

"Bucky?" the captain is whispering his name, his tone pleading. He doesn't think the captain is supposed to beg. The asset closes his eyes and bites his lower lip. It's loud near the captain. He can feel the wind on his face, brushing through his hair like fingers. It's cold up here. There's snow crunching under his boots when he shifts and his hands don't want to close around the handle of the zip line.

 _(he doesn't want to get on the train again he)_

Someone tells him to hurry. The train is close, and they're gonna miss their window, but the captain's mad about Steve Rogers and Coney Island and Lyon and that time in Austria the asset doesn't quite remember yet. He's trembling now and the captain just holds him tighter, breath warm on the skin just below his ear. It's so cold in here. There's ice on the inside of the tank and clinging to the metal of his left arm.

"Bucky," the captain says, and the asset can feel the man's mouth on him, can feel the words in his veins where they filled him with ash and rust. "I'm not your handler."

The world snaps back into focus and he's standing in the tower, ninety-first floor. His skin is hot and clammy feeling, sweat beading under the borrowed shirt. It has been six days since he was last in cryostasis. His hands snap up to the captain's arms around him, fingers digging in to the muscle there. There'll be bruises, he thinks, when he finally lets go -

 _(take my hand)_

 _(_ _oh god please don't let go_ _)_

"No, n-no, of course. . . of course you're not. You. . . You're not my handler, sir," the asset agrees, forces the words out between gasps. He can't breathe because he's laughing so hard, too hard, like smashing on the rocks as he falls, as the river drags him under again. "You're a _captain_."


	16. Chapter 16

Notes: FUCK IT, I'M DONE EDITING THIS SHIT. Thank you all for being so patient with my erratic posting schedule, and I'm sorry for all those comments I haven't replied to yet! I really do appreciate all the support and reviews you've left for me here. Real life has been pulling me in all kinds of crazy directions lately, but I am definitely not abandoning this fic! Anyway, please enjoy.

* * *

Miss Potts is coming to see them, for what he assumes is some kind of surprise inspection, while the asset and Sam Wilson are beginning their morning meal in the kitchen. Sam Wilson is making eggs, because his diet is not liquid. Neither weapon had been expecting visitors, and share a moment of confusion when Jarvis announces that she is en route, his polite voice sudden and loud in the quiet they had been occupying.

"Should I get the captain?" the asset asks the staff sergeant from where he is leaning against the counter. He had been watching the steady drip of the coffee maker, listening to it hiss and gurgle, the carafe slowly filling. It's nice, he thinks, the steam and heat and smell of it working. He won't drink it, because it is not one of the liquids that he is allowed, but he likes it anyway. Sam Wilson let him remove his gloves to touch the grounds earlier; they are still laying on the counter nearby. Coffee is dark and gritty between his fingertips. It is warm and pleasant in cups, makes the staff sergeant sigh with content when he takes his first sip in the morning.

Sam Wilson takes his coffee with flavored cream. The captain drinks his coffee black. He remembers that from. . . from yesterday, at the flat bar with his file laid open on the surface, images of himself splayed across tables with bloody instruments sunk deep into his chest and stomach. With his side cut open and metal gleaming in black and white and grey. Photos smeared across the floor like blood stains and calibration fluid in the laboratory.

No. No, that's not right. His file is with the doctors and he hasn't seen it in days. How many days? He can't remember. The captain showed it to Hydra Command soon after they arrived. He saw it sitting on the bar between them. He doesn't know if the file was open, and he hadn't seen the captain make his coffee. The asset has no idea how he takes it. But –

 _(the captain wrinkles up his nose like he doesn't like the taste of it, doesn't like the feel of it on his tongue as he swallows it down without complaint, tips his head back to get the last drop while Bucky watches and)_

"He's not here right now," Sam Wilson answers cautiously, watching the asset for an inappropriate reaction. They are not in Europe. It's six o'clock in the morning, pale early sunlight filtering in through the large windows, and the staff sergeant is wearing blue jeans and a faded grey t-shirt. His feet are bare. There is a pistol in a concealed holster at his hip, hidden under the hang of his clothes. He would be cold in the woods where they used to camp for the night, wake in the mornings to crisp air and shit coffee that no one likes. Sam Wilson flips the eggs in the pan, careful not to break the yolks.

The asset looks back to the coffee maker. Time has not passed, because the carafe is still filling. They are not the Howling Commandos. The captain is not here with him. He nods to let Sam Wilson know that he has heard and understood. "He is sleeping. It is important. For reset."

Sam Wilson hums with a rising intonation, signifying his agreement but shaking his head at the asset's statement all the same. He doesn't understand. This has come up before, he thinks, but can't remember when. How does he know that sleep is important for reset? Someone must have told him that. Who told him? He's not sure.

"No, he and Mr. Stark had to deal with some Avengers' business this morning. Remember? Cap woke you up to let you know he'd be back as soon as he could."

The asset frowns, brows creasing thoughtfully. He does not remember this conversation, but he and Sam Wilson are on the same team and Sam Wilson has no reason to deceive him. They are not field ready, so it would make sense that the captain would leave them behind if he was sent on a mission. If he concentrates, the asset thinks he can recall the sensation of the captain's hands on his face, thumbs stroking gently over his cheekbones, warm and aching like a wound that hasn't quite had time to heal. Was that this morning, or some other?

"James?" the staff sergeant prompts, his voice soft. The asset looks up from the coffee maker and meets Sam Wilson's serious, patient gaze. "Why don't you walk me through what you remember."

It is worded like a question, but said like an order. Sam Wilson does that so the asset knows he can take his time to reply, to structure his thoughts and prepare his report. He fumbles with the mess of code, but he doesn't really know what he's looking for.

Sometimes he gets flashes. Colors, sounds, smells. Sometimes he watches them unfold or play out along his senses. Memories come with temperature drops and names, recognition. Sometimes he gets behaviors and actions to perform from the old code. Gut reactions and bile, old wounds throbbing. Sometimes he gets trigger phrases and horror, insubordination and panic.

Sometimes he reaches deep into the blood-stained shadow of his past and doesn't get anything at all.

There is an empty glass in the sink. It is the asset's, though he doesn't remember why it is his glass. He does not remember holding it or placing it in the sink. Has he already eaten this morning? Or was that from last night? "I have a timeline for my reset. I'm supposed to eat, and see the doctors," he says, careful and monotone. Sam Wilson nods again, confirming the statement and prompting him to continue. "I was. . . I was sleeping, and the captain woke me."

The asset does not remember this but Sam Wilson told him that it happened so he includes it in his report. It is a sensible conclusion to come to: if the captain woke him, then he must have been ordered to sleep at some point, and he would not have disobeyed.

"James?" Sam Wilson says his name. Again. This is not the first time he has said it. The asset turns toward the staff sergeant, watching as he moves the eggs from pan to plate and turns off the stove. Sam Wilson looks up from his task slowly, deliberately. There is that patient look again that means the asset is supposed to speak now. He complies with the silent order.

"I don't understand the question, Sergeant."

"Do you remember what you talked about, when Cap woke you up?" Sam Wilson asks.

He doesn't have a _goddamn clue_ what they talked about. There's a tension in Sam Wilson's shoulders, like he's going to reach for his sidearm if the asset gives the wrong answer. The asset doesn't think it will hurt very much if the staff sergeant hits him with it. A weighted backhand won't break any bones and he doubts that Sam Wilson is authorized to fatally injure him while the captain is away. But he doesn't like getting shot, even in non-essential locations, so the asset scrambles for something he knows the captain has told him recently. "He said we don't attack our teammates."

"Okay. Okay, good, good, we can work with that," Sam Wilson tells him, relaxing. The asset feels very, very cold. That was something the captain told him in the laboratory. Did the captain give him orders this morning? He doesn't. . . he doesn't –

 _(the bed shifts as the captain sits beside him and his pulse trips as the captain leans in, breath ghosting over his mouth and closed lids as lips press against his forehead and he)_

Oh _fuck_ , he doesn't _remember_.

Sam Wilson asks him something else then, but in his growing panic the asset doesn't catch it, can't figure out what response the other weapon is looking for now. He knows that he is supposed to ask questions when he doesn't understand. They are not like the STRIKE teams. Someone told him that, and the asset knows that it's true, because the captain falls under the Army and Sam Wilson is a staff sergeant and the Avengers are so simple. Because this is the Army and the Army was never hard for him. It's probably the least complex of all the subdivisions of Hydra, of everyone who's owned him since 1942. He doesn't know why he's struggling now. The asset was a good Howler; he was _such a good Howler_ , he was the _best_ Howler. He knows that he can be a good Avenger and a perfect weapon and –

 _(he goes in with wet eyes and a running mouth and comes out with steady hands and skin that stitches itself back up when no one is looking, with ashes and ice in his veins and blood heavy on his tongue, blank and silent and)_

" _James_." Sam Wilson snaps his fingers in front of the asset's face. He blinks, refocuses. "The doctors. Do they make you feel uncomfortable?"

"Oh. No, Sergeant. I don't. . ." the asset pauses, struggling for the right words. He thinks they might be in the regulations, but they haven't talked about those yet. If he could get his hands on the appropriate manuals, he would be better at this, he thinks. "They don't make me feel anything. I'm used to being seen by a medical team and several technicians during reset."

They are silent for only thirty-six seconds before Sam Wilson takes a deep breath to steady himself. He asks, in a soft, careful tone, "Do the doctors remind you of Hydra, James?"

 _(Hail Hydra)_

It is, without a doubt, the stupidest question Sam Wilson has ever asked him. He can feel his facial muscles contort as his eyes narrow and his lips turn down in an unimpressed frown. The asset levels Sam Wilson with a flat look, snorting a little. "I know my memory isn't great, Sergeant, but I don't need to be 'reminded.' Hydra isn't something I would forget."

The elevator doors open then with a muted whoosh of air and mechanical slide, ending their confusing conversation. He straightens at the counter, turns toward the opening at the sound of heels clicking closer, and greets the woman like reflex as she steps into view, "Good morning, ma'am."

"Good morning, James, Sam," Miss Potts replies, smiling. Her hair is pulled back in a sleek chignon, her top black and cap-sleeved, her trousers slim and thinly pin-striped. Her heels are tall and pointed at the toe. She had been wearing a jacket when she entered, but she removes it to drape over the back of one of the seats at the flat bar before moving into the kitchen space with the assets. The asset holds himself at the position of attention and waits.

"Morning, Miss Potts," Sam Wilson says cheerfully over his shoulder, and the asset is relieved that the staff sergeant is already standing so that he doesn't have to haul him up to his feet again.

"How are you feeling today, James?" Miss Potts asks, pulling a cup from one of the cupboards. The asset steps aside as she pours herself coffee, the machine spitting a few drops onto the burn plate when she removes the carafe. They sizzle on contact, evaporating and leaving behind brown lines on the black metal. She replaces the carafe.

The asset frowns, watching her mix a spoonful of sugar into her steaming mug, fixing it the way she likes. That doesn't. . . One of them should have gotten that for her, he realizes, should have had it ready for when she arrived. He glares at the faded wings and star emblem on the back of the staff sergeant's shirt and wonders why Sam Wilson didn't tell him that sooner.

Miss Potts has both hands cupped around her drink now, her lips pursed ever so slightly as she blows on the liquid in a futile attempt to cool it faster. She still has her eyes on the asset, waiting for him to answer her question. He wonders what he is supposed to be feeling right now, turning over possible responses.

"I am. . ." he pauses, uncertain, tensing. He can't afford to get caught in a lie, but at the same time, he needs to make up for wasting her time two days ago. Two days ago? That seems right. "No longer malfunctioning, ma'am. There's no pain this morning."

Miss Potts beams at him, bright and beautiful. "That's wonderful!" she says. He begins to relax against the counter, her positive response washing away the earlier caution and beginnings of fear. She is pleased with his progress. "Tony had said that your arm had been hurting you, and I was worried."

"He shouldn't have worried you, ma'am. Tony Stark is a jerk," he informs her curtly. She laughs, touching his flesh and blood arm lightly through his long sleeves. Sam Wilson looks up from his eggs.

"I know," she tells him. The reaction is unexpected, but laughter and touch are good signs. They are part of the reward system the captain has established for him. And Miss Potts's hand is warm and soft, gentle where they are in contact. He enjoys her contact and the sound of her laughter, though it does not produce the same effect as the captain's. The asset assumes that it is because he is not calibrated for Hydra Command.

"You're keeping him anyway, ma'am?" the asset asks, his brows furrowed again. The words are out almost before he realizes what he's asked, but even if he's punished for lacking confidence in her decision, he thinks it'll be worth it. This is something he needs to know about.

Jerks are sent away. He knows this. They are put on trains and shipped to Hydra laboratories for upgrades and reprogramming. They are assigned to doctors who will remove the anomaly and make them compliant. He remembers this. If it's _different_ here, that's important. Miss Potts laughs again, shaking her head.

"Keeping him? I suppose so. Tony may be a jerk sometimes, but he's a good man at heart," she explains, her tone impossibly fond. She says it like the statement should be all the clarity he needs. The asset nods, grateful that his question was allowed even if the answer doesn't quite make sense. He takes the strange phrasing to mean that the technician is essential to base operations. Tony Stark is good at what he does. Miss Potts believes that Tony Stark is so good that she is unwilling to put him out of commission for any length of time. Being a good man is important to this part of Hydra.

"The captain is also a good man," the asset tells her, trying to mimic the softness of her voice and expression. She smiles at him, and the asset returns it with ease. He is getting better at smiling. It feels almost natural the way his mouth curls up and parts ever so slightly to expose his teeth, the way the skin at the corner of his eyes crinkles with the action.

"Yes, yes, he is, James," Miss Potts agrees. They will not send away good men. The Army is always looking for good men. He remembers hearing that, somewhere, and he knows that the captain is a better man than Tony Stark. There are no men who are better than his captain.

The captain is not a jerk but Tony Stark is and Tony Stark doesn't have to worry about getting sent away. He knows that the captain was sent away from the Army, because he was in SHIELD at some point, however long or brief that tour may have been, probably as the result of some mistake. He wonders, perhaps belatedly, if this means that Tony Stark is Miss Potts's favorite, because favorites get special treatment. More leeway, less punishment when mistakes are invariably made.

It would be better, he thinks, if the captain were Miss Potts's favorite. He decides that he will need to convince her of this at roughly the same time that Sam Wilson begins talking:

"So, Miss Potts, what brings you up here?" Sam Wilson asks. He remains standing at the counter, close to the asset, as he picks up his fork and spears another piece of egg. "Not that I don't enjoy your company, but it's a little early for most people to stop by for breakfast."

"Oh, I just wanted to check in on you," Miss Potts replies. "Make sure that you have everything you need. You can always ask Jarvis, and he can have just about anything delivered through the tower. I'll be in meetings most of the day, but you can call me if there's any issues."

"Thanks, but we shouldn't be bothering you," Sam Wilson says. "I'm sure you've got your hands full with Stark Industries."

"I'm sure I won't mind the distraction." Miss Potts grimaces. "Shareholders and lawyers I can handle, but I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when Tony's ransom video ends up on Good Morning America and splashed across the internet."

"Ransom video?" Sam Wilson frowns. "I thought there wasn't one? I mean, I wasn't in Afghanistan then, but things were crazy all over when he was captured. It was like the whole Air Force was on BPT orders for the second we caught wind of where he was being held, and that wasn't counting General Rhodes's special task force and the inter-service support."

More evidence of Tony Stark's position as Miss Potts's favorite. If she mobilized the entire Air Force to find one man, what would she do when she realized the asset had tried to hurt him? The asset swallows hard, suddenly nervous. He'll have to apologize to the technician later, hopefully before the little shit has time to meet with Command.

"There was one, it just wasn't. . ." Miss Potts falls silent, eyes cast down but not really seeing for a moment. The asset reaches for her, uncertain. He doesn't want her to get upset, but he isn't sure what he is supposed to do right now. His metal fingers brush over her wrist and the back of one of her hands where they cup her drink loosely. She starts at the unexpected touch, but smiles at him. Not a punishment. "Thank you. I'm fine, James. It was a rough time for us, is all."

They're all quiet for a long, breathless moment before she continues. "I don't know if Shield kept it on their servers. There's weeks worth of data that we're still sifting through. Tony has Jarvis focused on deleting or corrupting anything he thinks is too dangerous to be public sector knowledge: the blood sequencing they did when Steve woke up, the reports on Extremis, the stealth technology he designed for Shield, some of the weapons they were researching. . . that sort of thing. I don't think he even remembers that we gave Shield a copy of everything Stane had after we partnered with them to clean up the lab explosion and damage to Malibu back in '09."

"Stane? As in. . . Obadiah Stane?"

Miss Potts just nods, confirming what the asset assumes is a name, and takes another drink from her coffee cup. "Shipment manifests, secret research projects, blacklist contracts, clandestine deals, his contacts in the Ten Rings. . . And, of course, the ransom video they sent him. Shield had everything."

Sam Wilson lets out a low whistle. The asset looks between them, trying to make sense of their conversation. It doesn't mean much to him, but he notes it anyway in case he is questioned later. Miss Potts finishes her coffee, and the asset takes the empty cup from her before she can place it in the sink next to his glass. She shouldn't have to worry about cups and weapons; she is a very busy woman, with a lot of responsibilities. Miss Potts smiles at him again, touches his arm as though communicating something important through that brief contact, and goes to grab her jacket from the back of the chair she left it on.

"Not that I think it really matters," she goes on to tell Sam Wilson. "Stane and Tony's father had done so much work with them over the years that I'm sure they had access to whatever they wanted. Stark Industries has been involved with Shield since the beginning, after all. God only knows what they were getting into before Tony took over."

"Well, God and the internet, now," Sam Wilson amends. They both chuckle at that, the sound tight and strained like neither of them really found it funny.


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Notes:** First off, you guys and gals are the best for putting up with me. September was taken over by my llama-drama family after the last update, and November was a bust for progress since I was focused on my NaNo project (which I didn't complete, sadly, but I got a lot of work done on it). I know that I said I was going to update with two chapters (so ambitious, what was I thinking?) in December and then totally did not, because I am a lying liar who _liiiiiies_. Ugh. This has taken me so long to write because at first I was trying to figure out a tactically sound way to assault and clear a 93 story building without making Hydra a soup sandwich, and then realized that I was overthinking it and totally didn't need to. Some liberties have been taken with the Avengers' Tower's structure and security, because everything I know about it comes from the Lego Avengers video game (probably not the best source material to use, let's be real).

* * *

They dress for the day and Sam Wilson sits the asset down in the living room to teach him how to play something called 'spades' before his morning session with the doctors. He leaves briefly and returns with a deck of blue-backed cards, which he shuffles quickly while explaining the game's objective. There are bids and tricks, and underestimating his acumen will be met with a penalty of negative points. They take turns drawing cards until the deck is depleted, half split between their hands and the other half set aside. Sam Wilson allows him to both bid first and lead.

"Ace is high?" the asset asks, but he thinks he already knew that. The game is familiar like coffee is familiar, like Europe and cigarette ash. It makes him think of mischief and laughter, dim lighting and curses in four different languages, of coins and trinkets and torn notes. A soldier's game. His hands know how to hold the cards like they know how to hold guns and knives and garroting wire.

"And two is low," the staff sergeant confirms. That makes sense, that they are the highest cards, the best cards. The asset likes the ace cards because they remind him of the captain and the peeling white paint on a faded, fitted helmet.

He is supposed to declare his bid, his estimated success rate of taking tricks, before they begin. Each trick is worth ten points. Sam Wilson wants to know if the asset can strategize, can extrapolate his chances based on the numbers in his hand and the likelihood that he can use them better than Sam Wilson can use his. He's had to do this before, he thinks, at some point long ago. "Six."

"Eight," Sam Wilson says, and gestures for the asset to place his first card on the low table between them. They're sitting on the floor in the living room, because assets do not need chairs. The asset plays a five of diamonds and Sam Wilson puts down the seven. He plays the ten next. Sam Wilson counters with the three of spades, and the asset allows him to pick up the trick to move to his side of the table. "So, James."

The asset looks up expectantly. Two minutes of silence stretch between them. Sam Wilson plays the six of clubs.

"You were a prisoner of war for a long time."

He recognizes it as a prompt. Sam Wilson is seeking information, though the purpose of the interrogation is not clear. The staff sergeant must already know everything; after all, he has already been informed of the asset's service record and past assignment to Captain America and the Howling Commandos. What else could he possibly want to know about the war from the Smithsonian?

But maybe he has misunderstood. Maybe this isn't about the information in the exhibit. There may have been more than one war. His commanders sent him to a desert and a jungle and into the mountains, to islands and fields of ice far away from Europe. There were so many missions, so many targets, so many different agents and handlers and officers. It's all jumbled together in his mind, tangled up like wire in the dark places beneath his skin.

He remembers the boom of artillery and the whistle of incoming rounds, the sharp crack of his rifle firing. Mud and muck in his mouth and on his hands, twisted and torn up bodies rotting in trenches and fields beside him. He remembers bombed out buildings and cities reduced to rubble, numb fingers digging through the rough rock to pull smashed corpses out of the wreckage. There are a lot of memories of looking through the scope of his weapon and watching men fall into the dirt, into the snow, into the water.

He sets the eight of clubs on top of the six.

"There was a war," he agrees. "I don't remember being a prisoner."

They put him in a cell before the upgrade. General Lukin kept him in a cage before they started leaving him in the cryo-tank between missions. Someone chained him to the floor, once. Twice. He doesn't remember how many times. They chained him to a wall. Someone hung him from the ceiling by hooks embedded in his torso. He doesn't remember who.

The asset was transferred to another team after Captain America made him get on that train. There were a lot of teams over the years. He's pretty sure that none of them cared about what he wanted. He is a rifle and he belongs to Hydra. Weapons can be stolen but they cannot be imprisoned. Sam Wilson plays the nine. "Cap said they tortured you. That must have been hard."

"No, Sergeant," the asset corrects him as he puts the jack of clubs on top of Sam Wilson's last card. "It is easy to be tortured. Did you forget?"

"I've. . ." Sam Wilson is staring at him, full lips parted slightly and concern evident in his soft gaze. He shakes his head slowly and refocuses on the cards in his hand but doesn't play. "No. I've never been tortured."

That is absurd and untrue. Of course Sam Wilson has been tortured, they've all been tortured. It's part of the conditioning procedure, part of in-processing, like getting sized for a uniform or adjusting the straps of a holster during a pre-combat check. But maybe the memory is lost, fried in the electrical surge from the chair, and that's why Sam Wilson doesn't know, can't remember. There are a lot of things the asset doesn't remember. He wonders what it must be like to only know of torture in the abstract, a vague hazy feeling like the way he thinks of being whole and untarnished.

Something in his chest aches and he's very cold. He can't feel the fingers of his left hand and there's something wet seeping into the back of his jacket. But he's sitting on the floor, not lying in the snow staring up at the blue blue sky, and there's something. . . He's supposed to say something but he doesn't know what. Sam Wilson lets out a low whistle he can't decipher, plays the queen and moves to pick up the trick. The asset plays a spade to stop him and takes it instead.

"The captain never had to torture me. He is a very effective leader, and I was good. For him. I went where he told me to go. I followed his orders. I was the best Howler on the team," the asset explains, and offers the staff sergeant a lopsided smile. It feels like bragging, to talk about what his place had been. He wants Sam Wilson to know, to __understand__ , that he was the captain's favorite, that he's always been the favorite when it comes to Steve Rogers —

 _ _(what does Steve Rogers have to do with this?)__

— and Captain America. That it won't matter if he's stupid or a jerk or fucks up a mission, because the captain won't send him away —

 _ _(but he did he did he did what does that mean?)__

— as long as he's good again. As long as he stays the favorite. But even if he's not good and the captain sends him away it won't matter because he'll come back for the asset. The captain will pull him off tables and chase him across rooftops and stand —

 _ _(bloody and desperate and begging, his shield falling from his hand like the asset falls from the train again and again and)__

— against orders that would pull them apart. It's there on the tip of his tongue, clinging to the edge of his memory as the wind rushes by and the metal creaks and starts to give out under his hand. The asset knows he's going to fall even as he reaches out for —

 _ _(he's not going to make it he knows he's not but god he has to try)__

"James?" The asset's arms are at his sides, forearms resting on his crossed legs, cards in hand. His vision is blurred and unfocused. He has to blink a few times to clear it. Sam Wilson waits for him to collect himself before asking, "You okay?"

He opens his mouth to confirm, but then the lights flicker and go suddenly dark. A speaker pops and crackles out of sight before falling silent.

There's a momentary pause where Sam Wilson raises his head, brows furrowed at the base's malfunction as he tries to assess the cause. The asset can tell that something about this has put the staff sergeant on edge; perhaps the base's electrical system is not prone to error or easily tampered with. In his periphery, the asset is aware of a dark shape coming into view, the sound of rotor blades muffled by the thick glass of the room's expansive window on his right. Sam Wilson seems to notice, too, a half second after the asset turns his head to regard the medium-lift helicopter leveling its mounted machine gun at them.

Sam Wilson tackles the asset to the floor just as the first volley of bullets rips through the reinforced glass, tearing into the furniture and exploding out the other side. The asset lays flat with Sam Wilson on top of him, one of the staff sergeant's arms wrapped protectively over his face and head to shield him from debris and shrapnel as he unholsters his pistol.

"We gotta move!" Sam Wilson yells at him over the gunfire, and the asset twists beneath him to crawl from the kill zone. They scramble across the carpet and end up behind the counters in the kitchen, which are thicker than the furniture but not by enough to act as adequate cover. The rounds rupture marble and plaster and wood, showering the assets with fragments and dust. Sam Wilson crouches with his back pressed to the lower cabinet as he takes a deep breath and steels his resolve. He pops up into a half-standing position, arms supported on the broken tiles of the counter as he pulls off three quick shots at the helicopter before dropping back down to the asset's level on the floor.

The suppressive fire from the machine gun tracks left to right, churning the countertop above their lowered heads like tank treads tilling earth. There's a brief respite that leaves their ears ringing in the aftermath, paired with the sound of metal clanging against the window ledge and living room floor, of heavy boots clomping down a loading ramp and into the tower, glass shards crunching under foot. The loading ramp gives a harsh screech as it slides back and then the __whump-whump-whump__ of the rotor blades begins to fade as the helicopter descends from the window. He can hear more glass breaking below them as a second entry team breaches a lower floor a few seconds later.

Sam Wilson goes up for another shot and fires twice in quick succession — he recognizes the sound of a target being hit, of men crying out and a body falling to the carpet — before the enemy replies in kind. There's a cacophony of discharges then, semi-automatic weapons releasing lead into the counter and shots slicing through the air surrounding the staff sergeant. Sam Wilson pulls off another controlled pair, but takes a hit to his non-dominant shoulder as he turns towards a moving objective. He drops with another curse, seated against the cabinets now with legs spread to help him brace backwards, pressing the heel of his opposite palm and the pistol grip to the wound. __"Fuck!"__

It was a rifle round, probably 5.56mm, and it does not look like a clean, through-and-through shot. The bullet entered in the fleshy part of his shoulder between the joint and pectoral, beneath the staff sergeant's collarbone. He can't tell the angle from here, but it's low enough that there's no way it didn't hit Sam Wilson's scapula on the way out, if there is an exit wound at all. Sam Wilson's eyes water, and he gasps for breath, lips moving wordlessly before his mouth slams shut in a tight line. He pants heavily through his nose, the tendons in his neck tense and raised.

The enemy begins to move closer, honing in on their position.

"Sergeant?" he whispers, uncertain. The asset reaches out to put a hand on Sam Wilson's leg, but falters before making contact. He doesn't know how to comfort or relieve the other's pain, how to render aid or make himself useful in this moment. This is not his primary function. He is a sniper and he doesn't have any weapons at his disposal other than himself. The asset thinks that he could probably take out the remaining members of the entry team but __he needs orders to do it.__

Sam Wilson jerks his head back, thudding it against the damaged wood, and stomps one of his boots into the rubble on the floor. His voice is thready with panic and disbelief, a sharp edge of hysteria and the beginning notes of oncoming shock. "Goddamnit, Riley didn't die in Afghanistan for me to get shot in New York."

More rounds whiz by overhead, slam into the cabinets and wall on the far side of the kitchen. One ricochets off the sink basin. They both flinch down instinctively for a moment. Sam Wilson flexes his hand and tries to move his injured arm, but doesn't seem to be able to do much more than make a loose fist. His skin is wet with sweat, wood splinters caught in the perspiration across his brow and cheekbones. He curses again, and pushes his bloody pistol into the asset's right hand before returning pressure to the wound. There are eight rounds still in the magazine; the asset can tell by the weight. The grip is slick and red between his fingers. "Here. There's a first aid kit under the sink. Cover me."

 _ _(we don't attack our own teammates)__

The words are sharp, snapping up out of the old code like a whip cracking against the back of his eyes. His breath catches, and he stares at the weapon in confusion. It's the captain's voice, but he doesn't. . . doesn't remember when. Placing the memory is a struggle that leaves his pulse racing and his eyes wet. It was in Tony Stark's laboratory, before reattaching his arm and after lashing out at the technician. And then this morning, laying in the bed that wasn't his, that couldn't be his, with the captain's lips on his brow and a hand cradling his cheek so careful, so gentle, like the asset was is could ever be —

 _ _("Don't hurt anybody, Bucky, please, I'll be back soon, I promise")__

That was the last order that the captain gave him. He's not supposed to hurt people while he's here at the tower. It's an order and he should obey it, needs to obey it. He has to comply. Why would the staff sergeant give him a conflicting order? The asset frowns and then glances back up to Sam Wilson's paling face. "But the captain said not to hurt any—"

"Are you __kidding me right now?!__ Shut the hell up and return fire!" Sam Wilson screams, and it's that desperate, urgent grating quality to his voice and the feeling of spit flecking the asset's face that activates the correct response against his will. He rises instinctively, without thought to the consequence of disobeying their superior officer. His mind goes blank and cold with the knowledge that __this__ is what he's supposed to do. It's what he's __good for__. The asset cups the bottom of the pistol and braces the wrist of his firing hand with his metal prosthesis, pulling the trigger as he acquires his initial target.

There are three men left standing in the living room, all in black tactical uniforms, silhouettes bulky with the familiar shapes of STRIKE team body armor and helmets. The insignia on their shoulders is dark and matte; the asset doesn't recognize it. His first shot catches a man through the jaw, just below his chin strap, in an explosive spray of blood and bone fragments. The man gurgles, drops his weapon to let it hang against his torso by the strap and clutches at his face and throat where the round's velocity blasted it into the pale flesh of his neck, exposed from a missing throat guard. He hits his knees, bleeding out, as the asset's shifts his focus to the next man on the team.

 _ _(he is doing good work)__

The asset darts for the kitchen entrance as the remaining team members start shooting. A bullet zings off his metal arm, blocking a potential gut wound. His second and third shots hit the team's grenadier in the chest, are stopped by the plates in his vest. The man jerks back, winded from the velocity of the rounds striking him. It gives the asset enough time to close the distance between them, lower his shoulder and hurl his weight into the center of the man's gravity. They go down hard, his pistol clattering to the floor and the man's rifle caught between them. The man struggles, tries to throw the asset off, but the angle has him at a disadvantage. His grip shifts and slides along the man's armor until he can get the man on top of him, wrapping his own arms and legs around the man to pin him in place as a human shield. His pistol is out of reach and the asset can hear the final member of the entry team cursing as he begins to move in, no doubt seeking a clean shot and rescue his comrade.

There isn't much time.

 _ _(he has a knife when the weapon clicks empty and when the blade goes dull he uses his hands, the wet feeling of flesh giving way beneath them already familiar)__

His left arm is around the man's neck. The asset gets his metal hand on the man's face and sinks his thumb and index finger into the soft hollows of his eye sockets, causing him to howl as his eyeballs rupture. Blood streams down his face and the asset's hand. The man's short nails scrabble uselessly at the metal, catching momentarily on the edges of the plates before glancing off.

The asset tenses, squeezes inward and then __yanks__. Skin tears, bones break. Part of the skull's orbital plate and upper maxilla shatter along tiny fracture lines as the man's lacrimal and nasal bones are ripped from his face. The man shrieks with agony, but his screams are short lived as his body succumbs to the shock of the trauma and he passes out in the asset's grip.

Three more bullets strike the man's body, and the asset releases the limp form to roll out of the way of the final team member's burst. The man continues firing as he begins to close the distance between them, shots wild and panicked. The asset grabs for the rifle, slick wet fingers curling around the hot barrel with a hiss and sizzle. It turns to a grapple, both pulling and tugging and the man unable to get a clear shot. He fires, once into the air where the round thuds into the ceiling and then again into the floor when the asset forces the muzzle back down.

The man slams the lip of his helmet into the asset's face, breaking his nose. The pain is sharp, sudden, and causes spots to appear before his eyes, but the asset grits his teeth and tries to shake it off. He blames the brief disorientation for why he doesn't see Sam Wilson approaching from the kitchen.

The last member of the entry team doesn't see the staff sergeant, either, though, so they are perhaps equally surprised when the short blade from Sam Wilson's multi-tool is buried in the man's carotid artery. He makes a hard, choked kind of noise as blood bubbles up into his mouth and over his lips, down his chin to join the red pulsing out of his neck. His brows furrow beneath the lip of his helmet, his hands relaxing on his rifle. He coughs.

The asset has to close his eyes to keep the blood out. It is warm where it spatters onto his eyelids and over the bruised bridge of his nose.

Sam Wilson releases the tool. The asset lets go of the rifle and takes a step back. They watch the man sink to his knees, then to the floor and go still.

"You. . . you okay?" Sam Wilson asks, breathless and wincing. His shoulder has been bandaged hastily and his arm is strapped to his body with what looks like tape, kept immobile in an impromptu sling. The asset nods and retrieves Sam Wilson's pistol to return it.

"I had him on the ropes," he says, but doesn't know why or quite what it means. Sam Wilson huffs a laugh, shaking his head.

"Yeah," the staff sergeant replies, but the asset is fairly certain that it is not said in agreement. "Sure ya did, buddy."

" _ _Bucky__ _,"_ the asset corrects him, because he's not Sam Wilson's 'buddy,' whatever that is. His stomach hurts and his head is throbbing and his vision feels fuzzy on the edges, sick with the ebbing rush of adrenaline in his veins as his heart rate slows back down. The gun is heavy in his hand. He disobeyed a direct order, the captain will be so mad, he shouldn't have done that, he —

 _(has to focus because the training is hard and his sisters need)_

He —

 _ _(is not a brother, not a son, not a)__

He —

 _ _(builds the glory of a nation out of bones and)__

He —

 _ _(breaks and tears and destroys everything because ruining is what he does best)__

He —

 _ _(is awful the worst an absolute jerk he better just go and)__

He —

" _ _Bucky.__ _"_ The not-name pulls him back from the spiral, from following the frayed threads of code into the dark, wandering places out in the snow where he'd be lost. He blinks back the ice and the wind and the rattle of metal tracks up above as he takes a deep breath. Sam Wilson told him to return fire. He was following orders. It's not his fault.

He offers the pistol to the staff sergeant silently, but Sam Wilson just reaches into his pocket and pulls out another magazine for it instead, grimacing as he explains, "I can't reload one-handed."

The asset nods, tries to focus on the present situation. He remembers it being difficult to operate with only one arm. Perhaps the technician will build Sam Wilson a metal one like his own next time they go in for repairs. He takes the magazine and reloads the pistol, making a show of checking that the weapon has a round chambered before handing it back. Sam Wilson returns it to his concealed holster, and then points to the dead man's secondary weapon. "Give me his, too."

He does as he's told, unhooking the holster from the man's belt and thigh and assisting the staff sergeant with adjustments. During this time, Sam Wilson attempts to contact Jarvis, but without power to the building, it appears that Jarvis is unable to communicate with them through the base's intercom system from the command center. The asset takes one of the dead men's rifles and slings it over one shoulder. He picks up the grenadier's rifle next and checks the 40mm round loaded into the weapon's under-barrel attachment.

The olive-drab aluminum cartridge of a high-explosive round gleams back at him dully in the pale morning light from the shattered windows.

"You got any idea who these guys were?" Sam Wilson asks. The asset feels his expression contort, twisting in confusion, as he looks up at the staff sergeant.

"Why would I know that?" the asset asks. Sam Wilson moves to shrug, and then pinches up his face as though that were the worst possible decision he's ever made.

"I don't know, I thought they were here for you."

"No, Sergeant, the Winter Soldier Project is classified," he replies, then rips the insignia from the grenadier's shoulder and hands the patch to Sam Wilson. "The uniforms are Hydra, but these men aren't Strike. They don't report to Commander Pierce, and they're not Avengers, so whoever they are, they don't know I exist."

Sam Wilson takes the patch and purses his lips thoughtfully as he looks it over. "Is this. . .? This looks like Cybertek."

"What's Cybertek?"

"It's a. . . a company, like Stark Industries. . ." he starts to explain, and then trails off as realization dawns on him. "Oh my god. We need to get downstairs. Come on."

The asset rises and follows the staff sergeant to the stairwell. "I don't understand."

"They're not — damn it, they're not here for __you__ _,_ Bucky. They're here for __Miss Potts__."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Spades is a card game invented in America in the '30s, got popular in the '40s, and is still played by American Soldiers (at least in my branch, everyone had a story about playing Spades between patrols/HN station visits, it was A Deployment Thing). That medium-lift helicopter was basically an AW101 (Augusta Westland, "Merlin"), for those wondering what I used as a reference. ALSO, as you're all very well aware, I am an awful robot who runs on the tears of my readers (you're all such troopers). What you may not know is that I'm also writing a Sam-centric AU about his One True Love Riley and Sam's superhero shenanigans in NYC called  If I Stay Here. If you love Sam like I do (which is _so much_ omg), and like the way that I write flashbacks and incorporate things from the comics into the MCU, you will probably also enjoy this story. Remember: Riley didn't die in Afghanistan for fandom to ignore their big queer lovestory. And now Sid is done with the shameless plugging.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Notes:** James Rhodes is _a gift,_ and anyone who disagrees can meet me in the comments section where _I will fight you_. ┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

* * *

It is dark and warm in the service stairwell Sam Wilson leads him to, oppressive and smothering after the wind and noise on the captain's floor. He can hear muffled voices drifting up from below — personnel yelling to evacuate and someone's panicked sobbing as heels and dress shoes pound down the steps — but when the asset peers over the railing, he sees only empty blackness, and when the door falls shut behind them, he stops being able to see anything at all.

"Shit," Sam Wilson says. "Even the backup power and emergency lights are out." There is an awkward moment where he gropes forward with his good hand, fingers catching on the asset's shirt and then sliding past to clutch at the railing. He moves slowly in the dark, feeling his way down the stairs and trying not to jostle his injury. "Come on." The asset follows, wordless, because it is familiar and comforting to follow, to do as he is told and as expected, even though Sam Wilson is neither his handler nor a commanding officer.

They are both assigned to Captain America, and hiscaptainleft him in Sam Wilson's care, even though Sam Wilson is not in the Army. Sam Wilson belongs to the Airforce. He thinks he has been told this, at some point, and it's. . . confusing, but not unfamiliar.

The Howling Commandos had had members from different branches within it, so why wouldn't the Avengers? They are also an elite team, and Hydra tends towards complexity, sprawling and intricate.

He focuses on the task at hand, because none of this matters. The asset doesn't need to understand all the details — he ain't ever been too smart, after all — and when the captain returns from his mission, everything will be simple again.

Was he told that, too? Someone might have said —

 _("taking all the stupid with you")_

— it, once. Twice. A hundred thousand times. He's been told an awful lot of things over the years, but he can't recall who said what or when or why anymore.

They go down twenty-two flights of stairs blind, the air growing thick and sweltry the lower they descend. It reminds him of train stations and weapons facilities, of New York and Austria, of bases with furnaces in the basement where he stacks the bodies for disposal.

The next service door has a small glass window set into it. Sam Wilson points it out to the asset and explains that it is a good sign; it means they have passed the Avengers' living quarters and are out of the restricted section of the tower.

Stark Industries keeps offices in the unrestricted levels. Somewhere, on one of these floors, Miss Potts will be in a meeting room. Sam Wilson doesn't know which floor exactly, and with no power to the building still, the access locks on all the doors above the lobby are inoperable. They will have to physically force their way onto each floor to search for her.

The little service window lets in just enough light to illuminate the landing and allow the asset to make out the staff sergeant's sweating and exhausted features. Sam Wilson is panting hard, breath rasping out over cracked lips, body shivering despite the elevated temperature. The bandage at his shoulder is dark and damp with blood. He is dehydrated and requires repairs, because for whatever reason his accelerated healing hasn't kicked in like the asset's has, but they don't have time to find Tony Stark's laboratory and replace the damaged limb.

"I'll bring her to you," the asset tells him. Sam Wilson scowls.

"You know what? I didn't get any damn Super Soldier Serum, Bucky, this is all _heart_ ," the staff sergeant snaps. The asset doesn't know what that is supposed to mean. Sam Wilson stumbles on the stairs, and the asset puts an arm around his torso to catch him. Taking the staff sergeant's weight is easy, and the tight, grateful expression he receives in return feels strangely rewarding. It reminds him of a table in a safehouse in DC and the captain's smile, bright and good, and he remembers the warmth he'd felt as blood spread out from a wound he couldn't feel and a knife he couldn't see twisted in his gut.

He opens his mouth to ask about his current calibration and parameters, but Sam Wilson shushes him — "Do you hear that?" — and he falls silent, ears straining to place the noise that had alarmed the staff sergeant.

There is a dull boom like an explosive detonating and the tower's framework shudders ominously around them.

The asset grabs the railing and holds onto Sam Wilson until the tremors fade and he is certain that the structure will hold. He can make out a dim rumble as part of the building collapses and the sound of shots fired from somewhere on the next floor. The asset doesn't think it is the controlled firing of a well-trained entry team, though; this is wild and almost random, shots clustered together and popping off at odd intervals with no thought to ammo conservation or firing orders.

Below them, light flashes through the little service window, dancing across the landing before flickering back out into darkness. There is smoke in the air, beginning to curl up from the seam at the top of the door. He notes that the access lock has already been broken.

"That. . ." Sam Wilson winces, grits his teeth and pulls away to stand under his own power. "That's gotta be them. We can't —" He steps down too hard, too quickly, and loses the sentence in a gasp of pain. " _Fuck._ "

"Sergeant?" the asset asks, his brow creased with worry. His flesh and blood hand rests on Sam Wilson's unbound forearm.

"I'm fine, come on," Sam Wilson says, signaling for the asset to lead the rest of the way down the stairs with a small gesture, and the asset complies. He pauses to allow the staff sergeant to catch his breath once more and unholster his pistol with a trembling hand when they reach the landing. It is very loud on the other side of the door. "I'll be right behind you, okay? Don't get shot."

Sam Wilson gives him a curt nod to continue, and the asset kicks in the door to the sixty-eighth floor.

He enters first with sure, smooth steps, thumbing the safety off as his rifle comes up to his shoulder and he presses the stock tight against his cheek, scanning the deserted hallway. His exposed skin flushes in the sudden heat, feeling too tight over his jaw and cheekbones.

Water pelts them uselessly from the base's recently activated sprinkler system, drenching them within moments and plastering their clothes to their bodies, making the carpet squelch underfoot. It's unbearable, the scalding water and his own boiling sweat and the dense, humid air. Acrid black smoke rushes along the ceiling and drips off the walls and pours down the hall towards the stairwell from somewhere up ahead. It stings his eyes and airways, and forces him into a shuffling crouch in search of breathable air as he navigates forward with his left hand extended towards the wall to guide him, metal fingers trailing over the weeping paint. His skin feels pasty with the grit of ash and caught embers. Sam Wilson falls in behind him and has to lower his pistol and grasp the back of the asset's shirt so as not to lose him in the roiling darkness.

Flames roar and bellow from a room ahead of them as they stalk down the hallway. He doesn't bother to clear the rooms on either side of them; the base support personnel this high up have already scurried down the stairs ahead of them, it would seem, and the only rational place for the other Cybertek entry team to be is at the source of the explosion.

His feet drag through something on the floor, thick and dark, sticking to his boots like mud at the bottom of a trench. The asset's fingers brush across a blackened doorway as he enters the room at the end of the hall.

He is struck by the intense reek of burnt flesh, sweet and tangy and inhumanly foul and bitter within the swirling miasma. His mouth waters with the desire to vomit, and the asset gags at the taste of human char in the air. Behind him, he hears Sam Wilson retch, so close that it probably splatters onto his heels and the hem of his jeans. They're both coughing now, lungs burning and throats bloody with every strained inhalation, oxygen scarce like it has been devoured by something huge and monstrous in the dim glow cast by the surrounding fire.

It reminds him of walking into hell. Of a base miles behind enemy lines, somewhere between Kitzbühel and Klagenfurt. Of —

 _("Just go," Stevie says, his voice hitching over the words, tight and wet and)_

 _(he screams back through fire and smoke and the lingering pain of torture that he has only just begun to endure, "No, not without you")_

"Miss Pepper?" Sam Wilson tries to shout over the raging inferno. The asset keeps them close to the wall as they venture further inward, his fingers bumping embedded shrapnel and the places where it has been damaged, pitted and cracked. He can't see a damn fuckin' thing.

His feet shuffle through more ash. A fingernail floats by at eye level for a moment, and then is lost again in the smoke. The asset glances down and recognizes the distorted remains of a rifle, plastic handguards puddled around the twisted, melted barrel and ruptured magazine well. His boot comes down on something that he thinks used to be human teeth, and he stops abruptly as it all begins to click into place.

He is standing in what is left of the other entry team.

The temperature spikes in the room then, a withering wave of heat that makes him flinch instinctively and turn to block Sam Wilson from the worst of it. Faintly, he can hear the sound of a woman weeping over the tempestuous flames.

"Miss Pepper, is that you?" the staff sergeant tries again, pushing the asset forward with a hard, reassuring press of knuckles against his sternum through his wet shirt. The asset stumbles, but goes where directed.

They find her at the end of the wall where it has crumbled and been blown out from the explosion, at the apex of the fire where it is hottest. He can feel the exposed skin of his face and neck begin to blister, can smell it cooking, but can't focus on the pain. It feels like he is drowning again, like the river swallows him down down down so deep that he has forgotten what it is even to be cold, and the ice in his veins and the metal holding him together go soft and weak as he lowers his weapon and lets it fall from loose and numb fingers to hang against his body by the carrying strap. He stares in uncomprehending horror as everything around Miss Potts billows in a haze of black and flickering yellow.

This morning's perfectly pressed clothing has burned away and there is something molten churning beneath the impossibly delicate, translucent film of her skin, down the quivering expanse of her throat, across her shaking shoulders and the unsteady rise and fall of her bared chest. Her face is orange-red and lit from within so that she glows and the air around her shimmers, the heat like a pulse that stirs her hair where it has fallen from its sleek bun. Flames roll along her arms where she has crossed them protectively over her breasts. Her mouth is open, the small hiccuping sound he's certain that she makes lost in the din of hellfire so that it appears to move silently. Steam pours from her wide, unseeing eyes as tears evaporate off her skin and lashes.

He does not have any memories of meeting high echelon members of Hydra Command outside of Miss Potts, but he thinks that they have always evoked this kind of panic in him, this desire to run and run and _run_ , until his legs give out and his heart stutters to a halt. They were always something so much more than human, something chaotic and uncontrollable, wrongand nightmarish, sharp and red beneath painted façades of flesh.

She is made of fire and brimstone and an awful, searing death.

"Miss Pepper?" Sam Wilson yells to her, leaning around the asset's shoulder. "Miss Pepper, I need you to come with us, okay? We're gonna get you out of here."

Her mouth moves again, head turning in little jerks. She doesn't seem to notice them at first, but then she does and her eyes squeeze shut and she shivers against the remains of the wall so hard the asset fears she will crack and the heaving magma inside her will seep out to consume them. "He. . . h-he said this wouldn't happen, he said it was stable," she tells them, barely loud enough to be heard. Her voice is the first thing that breaks. "Oh my god. I didn't. . . I-I didn't want. . ."

"It's okay!" Sam Wilson shouts. "It's all gonna be okay! Please, Miss Pepper, you gotta calm down!"

"I don't like violence!" she screams back. Miss Potts looks like a demon, huddled in on herself as though someone backed her into that corner. As though they haven't just slogged through the Cybertek men that she burned alive for interrupting her meeting. As though anything could be more terrifying than she is in this moment.

 _Oh_. Oh, of course. This is what _upset_ looks like. Miss Potts is a powerful woman and she shouldn't have to deal with any of this, not empty cups or weapons maintenance or property inspections or base defenses. She has teams and assets to kill for her because she doesn't like to do her own violence and what she likes _matters_.

The asset reaches out with his left hand against every instinct he has to survive, every trained response to keep him operational, the sensors in his arm sending white hot warning flashes into his nervous system. His glove begins to smoke, the material igniting. He can feel the metal heating up the closer he gets to her, lancing up into his shoulder and collarbone as it spreads along his circuitry, creeps down his spine and spreads out over his ribcage where it has been grafted to his bones.

"Then don't," he says hoarsely, not knowing what else to do. He can barely breathe through the ash and burning debris, through the tripping of his heartbeat pounding like the drums he thinks he hears muffled in the distance with the incongruous, tinny screech of a guitar and a strange man's gravel rough voice before it is lost in another blazing swell of fire around them. They have to leave this floor, and soon. They're both suffocating, but he thinks Sam Wilson will lose consciousness first, because he has already lost so much blood and he doesn't heal as fast. "Just let. . . let me. Please, ma'am, let me do your violence."

Miss Potts hesitates for a moment, shaking her head, but the light beneath her skin is already dimming, seeming to cool as the fury within her calms. She takes his hand, and though it hurts, she does not destroy him with her touch and he is grateful, so grateful, for her mercy. The asset pulls them towards the exit as the drums pick up again, getting louder and louder and _louder_.

"What the hell?" Sam Wilson asks, turning to squint back through the open door of the conference room when they burst back into the hallway. The ceiling cracks behind them, then buckles dangerously, and a chunk falls loose to smash heavily through the murk.

Something comes down with it, because there are lights now hovering in the darkness, like gleaming white eyes amidst the smoke, towering above the assets. There's another light, a large hexagon centered roughly a foot below that, and machine sounds of whirring gears and shifting metal plates and the crashing percussion of music as someone screams out of an unseen speaker about making a stand and calling in High Command and birds of prey.

A machine shaped like a man with a chrome face, streaked with soot and built for war, steps forward out of the rubble. Its chest is a convex chassis in grey and dull blue, its hard metallic body a collection of molded polygons. The asset can make out the same wings and star emblem Sam Wilson has on the back of his shirt in crisp white paint on the underside of one arm when it raises it towards them. There is a white circle of light in its palm, some kind of weapon the asset doesn't immediately recognize. The gatling gun situated over its left shoulder redirects, swiveling to aim its muzzle at them.

The asset grabs Sam Wilson and yanks him out of the way as he raises his own weapon and the music cuts out abruptly.

"I'm only gonna say this once," the war machine warns. "Get away from her."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** ┬┬ ﾉ('—'ﾉ)


	19. Chapter 19

The asset shoots first, but the bullets ricochet harmlessly off the war machine's armor. A blast of energy and heat slams into his chest as the metal man returns fire via the glowing light embedded in its palm, which he identifies a second too late as being some kind of particle beam repulsor. It hits him with enough force to crack his ribs and scorch a hole in his shirt, sends him suddenly airborne and flying backwards into Sam Wilson. They tumble to the floor at Miss Potts's feet, the staff sergeant howling with pain as his wounded arm is caught between them. He is clutching at his bicep in an attempt to stabilize his shoulder as the asset rolls off him and takes aim again.

"Stop!" Miss Potts says, but the machine keeps coming, stalking closer through the screen of smoke and falling water, metal boots thumping down heavily onto the oversaturated carpet. A compartment at the end of its other arm slides open, exposing the barrel of another weapon system. The asset barely has enough time to launch the 40mm grenade from his rifle's under-barrel attachment; the high explosive round detonates on impact where it hits, center-mass, and causes the machine's upper body to rock back slightly, disrupting its targeting. High-velocity, armor-piercing rounds chew up the wall just to the left of the asset's body, shredding plaster and metal with equal ease.

"Shit, goddamn – ceasefire!" Sam Wilson shouts. He's not sure if the staff sergeant is speaking to him or the machine. " _Ceasefire_ , we're on the same team!"

The gun on its shoulder tracks the changes in their position with a soft whir of shifting gears, the sound almost lost under the patter of water from the sprinklers and the fire raging at the end of the hall and the heavy pant of panicked breath. They are vulnerable; there's nothing in this hallway that could act as adequate cover to stop anything in its arsenal. They are outgunned; the asset only has forty-two 5.56 rounds between his two appropriated rifles. Sam Wilson is injured and Miss Potts has to be protected at all costs. The war machine's paint isn't even scratched.

It does not reply.

" _Rhodey,_ _no_!" Miss Potts cries, tears in her voice where they can't form in her eyes, steam rising from her lashes again. She makes to step forward, reaching for the machine as the fire beneath her skin stirs sluggishly to the surface. Sam Wilson lurches to his feet and grabs her outstretched arm.

"Run!" he commands, and yanks her back towards the stairwell. The asset complies, turning to empty the rest of his rifle's magazine at his target as he moves. It doesn't do much to slow the machine down; the bullets ping off the chrome faceplate and thud into the surrounding hallway. It treats the shots like nuisance, like the pebbles they skip along the waves off the south pier, without even the flex of muscle or tendon in the neck to keep its head from jerking with the impacts.

It might be unstoppable. But the only ones who can build a weapon like that are Hydra –

 _(he knows that)_

 _(he survives because they make him forget how to die)_

They burst through the service door and Sam Wilson pushes Miss Potts towards the stairs leading up. "Tell me that Hulk room has a mechanical lock."

"This is a big misunderstanding," Miss Potts says. Sam Wilson keeps her moving forward, and she stumbles. Her throat and chest and back are all orange-red and glowing, the only light in the dark stairwell. He can count the vertebrae that make up her spine, the column white-hot and solid as the temperature rises. Something yellow flickers inside her mouth, behind her teeth and over her tongue as she speaks. "You have to let me go back. Rhodey's not going to hurt me."

"Who the hell is 'Rhodey?'" the asset asks, wheezing. A rib is, indeed, cracked. His face stings where the water and his sweat and the soot have gotten into an open blister. He drops the grenadier's now-empty weapon and unslings the other.

"Not now, Bucky!" the staff sergeant gasps as they pound up the steps. "We need to get to the seventy-eighth floor; if that room can keep a Hulk in, it can keep the War Machine out." Below them, the service door is blown off its hinges, smashes into the railing and tears a chunk out of it and the landing as it falls, banging off the lower levels on its way down.

The drum beat returns. It is louder than the river at the bottom of the ravine. Louder than the train rattling above him. It echoes off the mountain.

No. This isn't Austria. He has to focus. His teammate needs him. The asset glances over the railing and almost catches a bullet with his face as the war machine zooms through the stifling air to touch down on the landing in front of them.

"It can _fly_?!" The asset glares at the back of Sam Wilson's head for exactly one second before kicking in the door to the seventy-first floor and pulling his superiors in after him.

"Let me – just let me talk to him," Miss Potts orders, her tone pleading and wet. Her heat flares and Sam Wilson releases her arm with a sharp yell, his fingers burned. The machine lumbers into the open doorway, another weapon from its never-ending supply raised and ready to fire, rows of small rocket-propelled explosives rising from the opposite shoulder, pale painted heads pointed and gleaming in the dim light emanating from her body as she rushes towards it.

"Miss Pepper!" Sam Wilson calls out to her, but the asset keeps his grip and holds him back. The captain doesn't like to lose team members, and when he gets back from his mission he'll be upset if the staff sergeant is dead. The asset can't let that happen, he _can't_. And, and besides, Miss Potts is. . . she's _Command_. They can't disobey her. The asset has to get Sam Wilson back in line, or they're both going into the cryo-tank for a long, long time.

She's so much more dangerous than they are, anyway, so far beyond the trivial worrying details that keep assets compliant –

 _(Cut off one head and two more shall rise to take its place)_

She throws herself against the war machine's hard lines and metal, puts shaking arms around its neck. Miss Potts looks impossibly, deceptively fragile as she sobs, " _Rhodey_."

The weapon systems power down immediately, as though a deactivation program has been verbally triggered. The rockets lower, the shoulder-mounted gun tilts up to point its muzzle in a harmless direction. It holds her carefully, protectively, and says, "Shh. . . It's okay, I'm here, you're okay now," in a gentle voice that reminds him of the calming tone the captain uses during maintenance.

"Please stop," she whispers the command to it. The machine presses its faceplate into her hair.

"Did you know?" the machine asks Miss Potts sharply. It grates along the asset's tense nerves like rusted wire, catching in his skin and making his fingers twitch in Sam Wilson's shirt. He doesn't understand why she allows it. She could melt it down in a matter of moments, leave it a bleeding, twisted scrap heap for daring to touch her. Instead, her skin cools and goes pale once more, and she tightens her embrace as she shakes her head from side to side. "I swear to God, Pepper, if Tony's –"

"Don't yell at her!" the asset interrupts, and the machine jerks towards him, as if only just now remembering that it is not alone with Command. "Ain't nobody ever taught you how to talk to a lady?"

The gun on its shoulder redirects, takes aim. The asset puts himself between it and Sam Wilson. It is a useless action; his body will not the stop the bullets. It says, "Please tell me that is not who I think it is."

Miss Potts closes her hand over the mouth of the barrel, blocking it with her palm. " _Rhodey_. His name is –"

 _("Your name is James Buchanan Barnes")_

"Pepper," it says, tight with some unidentifiable emotion. "Tell me that Tony is not harboring the men who dropped three helicarriers on the nation's capital."

"Please get out of the suit," she orders. Sam Wilson sways forward against the asset's back, forehead resting on his shoulder. The adrenaline in the staff sergeant's system must be dropping, the heat and earlier smoke inhalation and blood loss starting to catch up. He does not faint, but he seems weak on his feet like his legs don't want to cooperate.

"I _can't_." There's a beat of silence, and then the machine says to seemingly no one, "I've got her. You can open up now."

Jarvis's cordial, measured words ring out from its speakers, startling the rest of them. "My apologies, General Rhodes, but the Home Alone Protocol cannot be suspended at this time."

"What?" Miss Potts asks, pulling back ever so slightly to stare at the machine in incredulous disbelief. The asset flounders at this realization as well, though he's sure it is for entirely different reasons.

"That's a general?" he asks Sam Wilson in a low mutter. How is that even possible? Generals are officers, aren't they? And officers are men, but this machine is clearly not a man. It is made of metal, like his arm and Sam Wilson's wings. It is an asset of some kind, fully upgraded in a way that they haven't been yet. "How –"

"I will give you a run-down of the impressive and storied history of James Rhodes's military career later," Sam Wilson hisses in his ear, so quiet that it is almost more breath than substance. "Just do _not_ , under any circumstances, tell him about the Winter Soldier."

And he doesn't want to connect these threads, doesn't want to understand, but it snaps into place anyway against his will. Sam Wilson had said that they were all on the same team, and if that's true, then this asset is another Avenger, and he _knows_ how officers in this branch refer to their favorite weapons, and that –

 _("do you even want me to call you that?")_

– that can only mean one thing:

If the War Machine is James Rhodes like the Winter Soldier is James Barnes, then it is Miss Potts's 'Rhodey' like he is Captain America's 'Bucky.'

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Uh. . . Now might be a good time for me to admit that I've gotten to the point in this story where I don't have any useful writing-craft experience to draw from. So, uhm, I'm just gonna go back to doing what I know how to do? Like, ¯\\_(⌣̯̀⌣́)_/¯ _fuck it we'll do it live_. This outline has changed over 9000 times so I'm just gonna upload what I've got and try to get back on a monthly posting schedule. We'll worry about pacing when I finish the first draft and get a beta.


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Notes:** Warnings for this chapter include medical and legal responses that you absolutely should not attempt in real life, and the return of Tony Stark and his insufferable pop culture jokes. I thought Steve was going to get back _this_ chapter, but I hit the 4k mark and realized that I would have to scene break for it, anyway, so I just pushed it to the next chapter (sorry, everyone!)

* * *

No one gets shot in the hallway, which is about as positive an outcome as the asset figures they deserve at this point, all things considered, though Sam Wilson's condition rapidly deteriorates as he starts to succumb to shock. The asset has to carry him, one arm under his knees and the other wrapped around his back, the staff sergeant's head lolling against his shoulder, as they rush up the stairs to the base's medical facility on the seventy-ninth floor. Miss Potts directs them into an operating room and the machine peppers him with questions about the injury. There are no doctors and no technicians left behind; the regular support personnel have all evacuated the base, and they are left to their own devices.

"What did he use? Glue, hemostatic powder? Did he take anything already?"

" _I_ _don't know_."

When he is able to, Sam Wilson mumbles through a few answers; powder, pressure bandage beneath the sling, tape to immobilize. He suspects a scapular fracture, as the bullet is still embedded in his body, but there appeared to be no arterial damage at the time of injury. He asks for water, and someone named Riley, and informs them that he needs a blood transfusion — he is 'a positive,' whatever that means — and he wants something for the pain. His skin is grey and clammy, and when he throws up for the second time, the machine and Jarvis take over with instructions and directing whatever maintenance procedure they are going to perform. The asset puts the staff sergeant down on the gurney inside the room and feels wholly lost as he tries to stay out of the way.

Miss Potts has located a set of surgical shears and is cutting Sam Wilson's shirt and bandages off. Her hands shake. The asset thinks that she will need something larger and sharper than scissors for what is about to happen next.

Then again, maybe not. Doctor Ivanov's bone saw had not been sharp, after all.

But no one reaches for restraints to strap Sam Wilson down to the gurney. His mouth is open and slack, his breathing fast and shallow. No one offers him a bite guard. The machine requests that Miss Potts dig her thumb into the skin just above the staff sergeant's collarbone on his injured side, which she does, applying pressure on the artery there in order to stem the flow of blood to the gunshot wound.

"You're gonna be fine, stay with us," the machine orders Sam Wilson, and then, to the asset, "Get his boots off, prop up his feet."

The asset complies, and they get a needle inserted into the staff sergeant's undamaged arm. He recognizes the plastic tubing they attach to the site. It is very similar to the I.V. he received upon his first visit, though there is a blood bag now instead of clear saline fluid. Miss Potts has him hold the bag above Sam Wilson's body, because her hands are otherwise preoccupied.

There was a metal pole present to do this job the last time the asset was here. He supposes that a metal arm is a close enough substitute.

The machine flushes the wound clean and replaces the soaked, dirty dressing with fresh gauze and a tightly wrapped bandage, its powerful hands oddly capable of rendering such delicate aid. Sam Wilson tries to move, perhaps in an attempt to get away, but the asset holds him down with his right hand while the machine continues working. A syringe is jabbed into Sam Wilson's thigh and the plunger depressed. It causes the staff sergeant's breath to stutter, and he blinks very quickly, eyes unfocused and glassy as he stares up at the ceiling. He emits a few low, wordless sounds that seem caught in his throat, little gasps of discomfort and confusion, but whatever the machine gave him seems to have dulled the worst of the pain.

"You're going to be okay, Sam," Miss Potts tells him. The asset hopes for all their sakes that the staff sergeant complies when she tells him to, "Just calm down, we're here to help."

"Miss Potts, you may stop applying digital pressure at this time," Jarvis's calm voice comes from the machine's speakers. "I will continue to monitor Mr. Wilson's medical state until additional medical assistance arrives."

"Wh-what about —?" she starts to ask, glancing to the weapons with worry. The machine shakes its head from side to side.

"If there's a complication, he could bleed to death," it says. The asset nods. Removing that much of Sam Wilson's arm and shoulder would, invariably, be complicated right now.

"We should leave it to the doctors and the technician, when he returns," he agrees, and the room goes oddly still and quiet aside from Sam Wilson's labored breathing. It is hard to tell where the machine's focus is with its smooth faceplate and unblinking, glowing white gaze, but the asset imagines that it is watching him with grim suspicion now that the immediate crisis has been diverted and Sam Wilson is not in danger of dying.

The asset tries smiling at it, tilting his head a little to emulate the charming mannerism he remembers from the photographs in the Smithsonian, but after a few seconds, his expression buckles under the weight of the machine's stare and his features collapse back into cool apathy. It is clear to the asset that the machine wants to decommission and dispose of him, but does not because at some point Miss Potts must have given it new orders that were similar to the ones the captain left for him: we don't attack our teammates. Don't hurt anybody.

 _(It is strange to think of himself as 'anybody')_

He finds that he cannot blame it for disliking him. The asset shot it. Repeatedly. With a _grenade_ , even. If the situation had been reversed, he's sure he would feel the same. It is an unfortunate turn of events. It's shit luck, he thinks, which is hardly surprising given what he can recall of his history.

"I. . ." the asset fumbles for something else to say. He gives the machine a vague nod. It is safer, he decides, to tell the truth than to try his chances with a lie. "I didn't know Jarvis had sent for you. I wouldn't have shot at you if I'd known you were on the team."

"The team," it repeats, affectless.

"Yes," he clarifies, "the Avengers."

Four seconds limp past before the machine finally replies, "I am not an Avenger."

His eyes narrow, brows furrowing, as he tries to reconcile the new information with his current understanding of this division's operating procedures. Maybe it reports directly to Miss Potts. The Avengers, after all, are Captain America's new team. But if it isn't an Avenger, then that brings into question Sam Wilson's assertion that they were all on the same team and shouldn't be fighting, and the asset isn't sure what to make of that unless he had simply meant that they all fell under the Army's jurisdiction.

"Rhodey," Miss Potts says, her voice very soft with only just a hint of warning.

"Who are you, James Barnes," the machine says. It is a question, he thinks, but the machine speaks like it has never been programmed to ask questions, or like it has forgotten how. The asset opens his mouth, and nothing comes out.

A familiar chill seeps out from behind his damaged ribcage, which is healing slower than the rest of him. His skin is pink and tender and itchy under the soot where burned portions along his cheekbones and jawline have begun to crack and flake off with the movements of his facial muscles. Breathing makes his chest hurt a little even as the cold and numbness spread, despite his lungs not being punctured.

He. . . he has no idea how to answer that question, because he has already identified himself. What more does it need? Is he even supposed to obey its commands? The machine is both an asset and an officer and he doesn't know where that means they stand in relation to one another. He thinks they are similar, though, because Sam Wilson called it James Rhodes like they call him James Barnes. So maybe there are others, successive designations all down the line, with this war machine simply being the latest edition. Maybe there are defunct weapon systems called James Delta and James Easy. Kilo. Lima. Oscar and Peter. Maybe Tony Stark is building James Sierra and James Tango in his laboratory above them. He wonders why Hydra doesn't build more durable Sams if they've made it all the way to 'Wilson.'

As though summoned by the thought, there is a commotion from the other side of the door, the sound of pounding feet and indistinct voices in the hallway marking the return of the technician, which saves him from having to reply. Tony Stark bursts into the room wearing dark jeans and a shirt with a unit emblem that the asset does not recognize. He is not carrying any weapons. His hair is damp with sweat and he is panting. There are dark smears like bruises under his wide, restless eyes.

"Pep, sweetheart, babe — are you okay? What happened?" The words escape him in a loud rush, and Miss Potts turns away from the gurney to face him. They meet halfway between the gurney and the door to embrace one another. His arms wrap around her and his fingers cup the back of her skull gingerly. Her own hands leave trails of blood across his shoulders and back where she clutches at his shirt. "You're okay? You're okay, of course you're okay, oh thank –"

"The 'Home Alone Protocol,' Tony?" the machine interrupts, storming past the other assets to reach the technician. It pokes a metal finger accusingly into Tony Stark's face, and only barely misses stabbing him in the eye because of the way the man jerks his head back. "What the hell were you thinking?!"

Sam Wilson groans and tries to sit up, slurring something unintelligible about everyone's best friend being an asshole that the asset doesn't understand. He shushes the staff sergeant and pushes him back down on the gurney as gently as possible. The argument on the other side of the room only grows more heated when Tony Stark scoffs at the machine's outrage and swats the hand out of his face. " _What?_ You're the only person I could trust to —"

"Please don't fight right now," Miss Potts says, but seems to go unheard. The machine leans in over her to bring its faceplate so closer to Tony Stark that the tip of the man's nose brushes the metal.

"Then you _ask me_ ," it snarls. "You can't just _hijack_ the Iron Patriot suit whenever you —"

"Look, there's no 'Iron Man' right now, so I can't afford for you not to show up when I need you."

"And I can't keep your dumb ass out of jail when you do stupid shit like this! We're at a Defcon level that literally didn't exist a week ago, and I just blew a hole in the middle of a Pentagon security briefing when your over-designed paperclip took over —"

"That is no way to talk about Jarvis," the technician snaps, looking offended. The machine doesn't even slow down its rant to acknowledge the outburst.

"— and my comms have been jammed for over an hour; there's probably an airstrike on the way to level the whole tower to minimize civilian casualties in case I've gone rogue or —"

The temperature in the room suddenly spikes, and they both go silent, Tony Stark flinching as he releases Miss Potts and takes a small step back. Smoke rises in grey whiffs from her hands where Sam Wilson's blood is burning, the smell sharp and grounding. She stands between them, trembling and red and dangerous, fire shifting under her skin and threatening to bubble past her lips.

"Stop fighting," she orders, and her voice wavers. Tony Stark swallows hard and nods. The machine stays very still, but says:

"Tones, Pepper. . . this looks _bad_. Really, really bad. You were out of line, and you need to let me try to minimize the damage that's been done."

Tony Stark glares sullenly at the machine for a moment before he sighs, and rubs a hand down his face. "Yeah, okay, I acknowledge that it was a bad idea to install an override in your suit without telling you."

There is a beat of silence, and then the machine says, "I'm gonna punch you in the dick, and you have until I get to the count of 'three' to decide whether or not I'm wearing an iron gauntlet when I do it."

"It is technically a gold-titanium alloy," he interjects.

" _One_."

" _Okay_ , jeez, chill. Gimme your arm and open up the command console. . ." the technician sidesteps Miss Potts, who has her eyes closed and is taking deep, slow breaths in through her nose and pushing the air out through her mouth in an effort not to get upset again, and begins tapping instructions and new code into the display screen that has been revealed on one of the machine's forearms. It mutters 'two' threateningly while Tony Stark works, which prompts him to whine at it, before whispering to the console frantically, "Open open open open —"

Gears shift and whir, metal catches releasing and pulling back with a soft 'whoosh' of compressed air as the machine's chest cavity splits and retracts, the faceplate unlatching and sliding up out of the way. Beneath the armored skin, James Rhodes looks like all the other assets, like a weapon shaped into a man. It —

 _(No, he)_

— is composed of muscle and tendon and flesh, soft and dark like Sam Wilson, with black hair shorn regulation short and wearing what appears to be an officer's uniform in blue and white. The name tag on his breast pocket is small and black and reads 'RHODES' in crisp block letters. His shoulder boards are embroidered with the single silver star rank insignia of a brigadier general.

He steps down out of his skin and snaps his wrist forward, catching Tony Stark in the crotch with the back of his hand. The technician grunts in pain and cups himself with a curse.

"Gimme your damn phone, Stark; I have an airstrike to call off."

There's a quick fumble as the device in question changes hands, and then James Rhodes and Miss Potts both move the few feet towards the door to send up the report. She murmurs something to the machine, and accepts a soothing touch to the small of her back before pressing her lips to his cheek at the corner of his mouth and excusing herself to the hallway. The asset looks at the open armor, and wonders if James Rhodes feels strange without his metal skin the way that it is strange for him to be without his metal arm. His shell stands motionless, with its gleaming, glowing insides humming faintly.

His own insides do not glow and are not powered by electricity or strange Hydra reactors. He knows this. The asset has seen them. When they cut him open, there is only blood and viscera and pain.

Tony Stark winces once more and straightens, hands coming to rest on his hips as he regards the asset with a frown. The asset wastes no time in asking, "Where is the captain?"

"Shh!" the technician scolds him, raising a finger to his lips. He glances over his shoulder at James Rhodes, who is engrossed in his conversation with what the asset assumes is another commanding officer. "The Man With the Plan is helping unload our resident damsel in distress," he answers in a whisper, as if that explains anything at all. It does not.

"You have a damsel?" the asset asks, wrinkling up his nose in confusion.

"And he was in distress," Tony Stark replies. The asset assumes that he must be mistaken. Damsels are like dames, he thinks. They're usually female. "Barton was in custody, we weren't sure if it was Hydra or just someone in the Alphabet Soup and Romanov wanted backup, so —" There is a brief pause as the technician notes the asset's questioning look before he interrupts himself to add further clarification. "Barton. Clint Barton, they call him 'Hawkeye' and he's got this frankly ridiculous Robin Hood schtick going, except he falls off buildings and honestly we end up pulling him out of dumpsters more often than not. Did Capsicle give you the Avengers rundown before we left? By the way, you're still not an Avenger, I'm totally not clearing that, me telling you this is not my endorsement. Endorsement denied."

The asset snorts, rolling his eyes, and opens his mouth to remind the technician that his opinion doesn't matter, when Tony Stark nods at Sam Wilson on the gurney and asks:

"Speaking of the American Dream, how's the rest of your chorus line doing?"

"My what?"

"The other Star Spangled Singer over there," the technician says, gesturing towards the assets with a flourish. "You know, like from the old USO shows? Captain America's backup dancers? C'mon, John Ballantyne, these aren't as funny when I have to explain them."

His name is not John Ballantyne and he does not know what Tony Stark is talking about. He assumes that it's some kind of code he has forgotten, because the acronym sounds familiar and he knows that when someone asks for 'backup' they are usually referring to additional support personnel.

"You mean. . . Sam Wilson?" he offers the staff sergeant's name to the technician and gets a flippant but vaguely affirmative noise in return. Sam Wilson groans again and paws ineffectually at the asset's hand on his uninjured shoulder. "He was damaged. We need a doctor to repair him."

"My god, you sound like a machine, and not even a fancy one," Tony Stark remarks, bemused, as he steps closer to assess the situation. The asset scowls.

"No," he says, and points to James Rhodes. " _He_ is a machine. _I_ am a _rifle_."

"Sure, whatever you say, Full Metal Jacket," the technician agrees, raising his hands in a mollifying, if somewhat patronizing, expression of capitulation. "You need a new bag, by the way. Though that reminds me. . . Rhodes! Who got that contract for the EXO wings? I saw them in action on Youtube, and since he actually got off the ground it couldn't have been HammerTech, and with the DoD having to use an American company, Kronas Corp and its subsidiaries are out of the running. And I know _I_ didn't build it. In fact, I'm getting real sick of dealing with all this stuff I didn't build."

James Rhodes ends his call. "Yeah, I bet you are," he says, and without the armor it is much easier to read his anger when he rounds on them. "Speaking of which, where'd your friend here get the arm?"

The asset assumes the discussion has returned to him, though he isn't sure that he understands the title James Rhodes applies. "Here," he answers easily enough, because it is true and he remembers the maintenance. "Tony Stark attached it in his laboratory a few days ago."

Tony Stark pauses in the middle of retrieving another bag of fluids, blood in one hand and saline in the other. His eyes flick back and forth between James Rhodes and the asset for a moment, before he makes an extravagant show of shrugging nonchalantly. "I did do that, yeah. What does he need?"

James Rhodes sets his jaw very tightly, and grits out, "I swear to God, Tony, if this is the guy who —"

"I'm surprised no one's told you that this man is James Barnes."

" _S_ _ergeant_ James Barnes," the asset reminds him, because Tony Stark has the military bearing of a fucking sandwich. "I served in the Infantry before being assigned to —"

"'This man' has a _metal arm_ , and I think you know exactly where I'm going with this," James Rhodes points out, but assists the asset with switching out the blood bag for the saline Tony Stark offers them. Tony Stark lets out a garbled, noncommittal guffaw at that, and the asset keeps his mouth shut.

"So what? You going to detain every guy with a prosthetic? That's some harsh profiling, even from you, honeybear; I hope you've already cleared the rest of the Wounded Warrior Project." The asset has never heard of that project within Hydra. Maybe it is the official name for the laboratory tasked with decommissioning assets too damaged for reset. "But not everyone missing a limb is Shield's bogeyman, and Bucky Bear here —"

"We're not bears," the asset snaps in frustration, but his complaint goes ignored. Tony Stark is a river, and he speaks in rapid currents that tug and pull and leave the asset gasping on frozen banks without any memory of how he ended up there. The conversation surges like water all around him and he cannot keep up.

"— is _that_ James Barnes, apparently. You know, Captain America's plucky sidekick from World War II? This is him, fresh out of a Shield freezer."

"Rogers is here, too?" James Rhodes asks sharply. The asset jerks at the name off the machine's tongue, but Tony Stark shakes his head, because no. Of course not. Steve Rogers isn't here. He isn't. He wouldn't be.

 _(this isn't a back alley)_

On the gurney, Sam Wilson seems to be returning to some semblance of baseline functionality. The asset focuses on him instead of the rushing wind and the rattling train and the sound of splintering wood ringing in his ears.

"What? Who? Rogers? I have no idea where he is, he could be anywhere, really, and if I were wanted by the United States government in regards to accusations of terrorism, I certainly wouldn't be hanging out in Manhattan, either, that's for sure."

"Tony." James Rhodes levels the technician with a very grave look. "You _are_ wanted in regards to accusations of terrorism right now."

"What? Since when?!" the technician squawks.

"Since you committed an _overt act of treason_ by kidnapping the Iron Patriot in the wake of a terrorist attack on the nation's capital."

Tony Stark gasps theatrically, and puts a hand to his chest in mock-horror. "Your allegations wound me." This seems unlikely, as Tony Stark does not appear to be injured, but the asset does not doubt that even without the armored skin and heavy arsenal, the War Machine is more than capable of causing him considerable harm.

"This isn't 1990 anymore, harboring fugitives and providing material support is a serious crime," James Rhodes replies.

"That's not even fair, I had no idea Doug was being serious when he said they called him 'Doctor Demonicus,' I thought that was, like, his DJ handle, or something. Besides, if we were going to pick the Neo-Nazis out of a crowd, they probably wouldn't be the last living member of the Howling Commandos, the gay black guy —"

"Wrong section of the community," Sam Wilson mumbles, then coughs. He pats the asset's hand distractedly.

"— and the Jew in the room. In fact, the only thing that would make this even more ridiculous is if we were all Jewish. Are either of you Jewish? I mean, Sam, it would be great if you were; that would make you the trifecta of 'Definitely Not a Nazi,' and I could call you 'faygala' and it would be double the pun."

"I'm not Jewish," Sam Wilson informs them. The asset just stares at the technician, mouth slightly agape, as he tries to decipher what the hell they're saying through the messy code.

"Well," Tony Stark huffs, clearly disappointed. "No one's perfect."

James Rhodes shakes his head. "I need you to focus here, Tony. I wasn't kidding when I said this looked bad. I don't care which James Barnes you say he is, unless you are telling me right now that you built that arm and had him in your lab when the Triskelion came down, I have to bring these two in."

Tony Stark goes quiet, the somber expression on his face seeming out of place with his previous insensible attitude. He fusses with a tube of burn salve to stall, which the asset takes from him before he can start smearing it on Sam Wilson's face. "And if I'm his alibi?"

They are all very aware that it is a lie. The asset meets Tony Stark's gaze, which is clouded with some mixed emotion he can't identify. He thinks they are running through the same options, weighing their chances and debating their bad luck, coming to the same conclusion that this is a poor hand they've been dealt and no amount of bluffing is going to get them out of it.

James Rhodes puts his hand on Tony Stark's arm and tells him, soft and sad, "I can't protect you from yourself," like he really wants to say —

 _("Please don't make me do this")_

— something else but at the last moment has thought better of it.

"I am not a domestic terrorist, and I did not provide material support to Hydra," the technician says, and he is honestly the worst gambler the asset has ever met because even he knows this is a stupid play. "But help me bring the power back on, and leave them here for now, and I'll cooperate. I'll. . . remove the override in the suit, and come with you. My lawyers can meet us in D.C."

James Rhodes closes his eyes and hangs his head. He squeezes the technician's arm. "I won't be taking you to D.C. if you do this, Tony."

". . . They want you to take me to Guantanamo, don't they." It is not a question, but the machine nods anyways.

"Just for the initial questioning —"

"Interrogation, you mean," Tony Stark's voice breaks on the word. Like he's afraid, the asset thinks, but of what? Of being tortured? What an absurd response to something so routine. "Don't I have rights as an American? I thought all that Patriot Act shit was for foreigners and didn't affect natural-born citizens."

"The Senate passed a resolution that added Hydra to the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations three days ago and Congress just expanded the AUMF to authorize use of force against it, God, _don't you watch the news?_ " James Rhodes clutches at the technician with both hands now, fisted in the front of Tony Stark's shirt, centered on his chest over his heart. "If you do this, you'll become an unlawful combatant in the War on Terror, and as _Iron Man_ , you're considered too high-value and too dangerous to be detained on American soil while awaiting trial."

"But I blew up the suits!" Tony Stark cries in his own defense. " _All_ of them."

" _You_ are Iron Man, remember? You said that on the floor of Congress four years ago, and nobody forgot," James Rhodes reminds him.

"What about due process?" Sam Wilson asks, struggling to sit up. "Fifth amendment rights?"

"This is criminal law," the machine explains. "All I need is reasonable grounds and exigent circumstances. Tony, I'm an _officer_ , whatever you say to me, I can be called to testify on against you."

"I'm not confessing to anything," Tony Stark says quickly, and covers James Rhodes's hands with his own. His fingers quiver for a moment in the air before making contact, and his mouth is a thin line slashed across his features, pulled tight in a fake smile below hollow eyes. "This is not a confession. This is me not resisting arrest. That's all."

"You can't just take him," the asset pipes up, thinking back to the conversation with Miss Potts this morning in the captain's kitchen. Was that really only hours ago? It feels like so much longer. "He's _a_ _good man_. He should stay here."

"He'll stay with me," James Rhodes reassures them both. The asset thinks it sounds wrong, off somehow. He doesn't understand. Miss Potts said she was keeping him, because he was good, and good men are in short supply. Good men aren't taken away for reset. Tony Stark makes a choked sound. "They won't —"

"We both know that you can't promise me that," the technician interrupts, his voice hoarse. Sam Wilson curses, lets his head fall back against the gurney.

"This isn't Afghanistan," James Rhodes says.

"Well, I'm sure the food will be just as terrible," Tony Stark jokes. Nobody laughs.

* * *

 **End notes:** Bucky's mistake/rationalization with the military phonetic alphabet makes a little more sense if you know both the old Joint Army/Navy radio alphabet from the '40s and the NATO/ICAO version in use today. But for those that don't, this is the slip: 'Baker'/'Bravo' to 'Barnes,' 'William'/'Whiskey' to 'Wilson,' and 'Romeo' to 'Rhodes.' Rhodey's paperclip jab is a comparison of Jarvis to Microsoft Word's obnoxious 'Clippy' assistant. The references Tony makes are as follows: John Ballantyne is the name of the character suffering from amnesia in Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 film, 'Spellbound;' the 'Full Metal Jacket' quip is a reference to the famous chant from the film, 'This is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun;' Doctor Demonicus is a villain from the Iron Man comics; my Sam is an A+ bisexual; and yes, I headcanon the Starks as being ethnically Jewish. 'Faygala' is a Yiddish term for a homosexual man but literally translates as 'little bird.' I have no idea how offensive it is generally considered as an insult, though, since I don't actually speak Yiddish; I've only ever heard it once, used in a fondly exasperated tone, from an older Jewish lesbian to an older Jewish gay man (but let's be real, Tony grew up in the '80s and '90s and has probably used 'fag' as an endearment before). I'm playing loose and fast with the USA PATRIOT Act, mostly Title VIII, which covers the definitions of domestic terrorism and penalties under criminal law, and the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, which allows the US military to use all "necessary and appropriate force" against terrorists or those who harbor/aid them. The State Department does keep a list of foreign terrorist organizations, and Hydra would meet the requirements since it started in Germany and absolutely is a threat to national security. The AUMF has been expanded from its original "those who planned, authorized, committed or aided" the persons/groups responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks to include ISIS and other Islamic militant groups as of the end of 2015, so I figured it wasn't a stretch that the American government would use it go after Hydra before they slithered off under a rock somewhere. I'm explaining away the quick turn-around time with the legal stuff due to those exigent circumstances, as historically, Congress tends to get shit done right after a huge attack while emotions and national hooah-ism are still running high. Rhodey's mention of "on the floor of Congress four years ago" is a reference to the hearing at the beginning of Iron Man 2. /endbabble


	21. Chapter 21

In the aftermath of any action, there is always a great deal of activity. Personnel are called in to deal with the fire and structural damage to the sixty-eighth and sixty-ninth floors. Bodies are disposed of. James Rhodes and Tony Stark return power to the base. Doctor Santini and the medical team arrive to take over Sam Wilson's repair process and remove the asset from the room, despite his protests to remain. The female technician who had first seen him treats the asset's wounds, cleaning the abrasions and applying ointment to the burns on his right side, chest, and face. She applied a localized anesthetic before she cut away the parts of him that could not be salvaged, and the saline she used to flush out the ashes trapped beneath his damaged skin was cold. Halfway through the procedure, the anesthesia faded, but it wasn't so painful that he could not sit still through it, so he didn't say anything. He was not supposed to speak during maintenance, after all.

Now, it itches beneath the pristine white of the bandages where his accelerated healing is stitching him back together, cell by cell and inch by inch.

 _("Do you know who I am?")_

The asset blinks up to meet a stranger's gaze in the mirror of the captain's master bathroom. Unlike the main room, this section of the floor remained intact and was almost untouched from the morning's assault, marred only by a few holes where stray shots from the machine gun puckered the walls in the hallway and the captain's bedroom.

He washes his hands, noting that it is, indeed, much easier to do with two instead of just the one. It feels different being here alone, though. These are the same tiles and the same sink, the same soap next to the same basin, now oddly clinical without the captain behind him.

"No," he tells the stranger in the mirror, because he doesn't know him. The reflection is familiar in the same way that everything both is and is not with this new team, details fading into one another until it is all hazy and indistinct, an endless blur of experiences that are only superficially unique and cannot be pulled from the sum of their parts. "I don't."

He thinks there was a time before he became accustomed to the cadence of the mission cycle, the soothing repetition of repair, resupply, redeploy. A time before ice and resets and cryo-tanks. His mismatched hands are splayed on the countertop, supporting his weight as he peers closer in the flickering overhead light. This isn't like in the Smithsonian, where there had been a man who looked like him but hadn't really been a man at all, because that had been the asset. And the asset, he has to remind himself, was never a man.

The asset is a complex weapon system, and weapons are supposed to get cleaned after each use. Rifles don't get put away dirty, so he should. . . he should finish getting cleaned up. The captain would like that, he thinks. It's probably part of his new self-care maintenance procedure, anyway. There is something like that in an old Army regulation somewhere, and he can remember shorter hair slickly styled with pomade, has a vague memory of a knife edge on his face leaving him looking oddly young and too human for a battlefield.

"Who are you?" he asks the stranger. The man on the other side of the glass mimics him silently.

Between one blink and the next, the mirror cracks.

The asset doesn't remember punching the glass, but it is a reasonable conclusion given the available evidence. The fracture point is located at eye level, just to the left of where the reflection is now, and the impact is circular with cracks webbing outward. The articulated plates of his metal hand are resettling with a soft mechanic whirr and electric hum at his side. His ears are ringing with the sound of the blow, louder than the howling wind and the rattling train, than the splintering of wood under his fists a lifetime ago. A record skips, flashing blue and red and blond, as he stares up the mountain from the end of a long long fall he can never escape. His heart beats white noise and radio static in his skull, like the murmur of men stepping onto the station platform to ship out and die. He can taste sea salt in the air, popcorn and lingering smoke. His tongue aches with spent rage.

It takes a moment longer to register that he isn't alone anymore, and someone is breathing out of sync with him. His gaze flicks from his own tired eyes in a face that doesn't belong to him, wide and pale and just a little scared above bandages that could be hiding anything or nothing at all, to the doorway and the whole world seems to grind to a halt as he turns to —

"There you are," the captain says, relief flooding his voice the way warmth floods the asset's veins at the sight of him and his colors in the opening. Blue across his chest and all down his legs. A white star over his heart like a target. Red accents and outlines and stripes on the kevlar protecting the rest of his vital organs. His helmet is matte and blue and fitted, formed to cover the top half of his face, the letter 'A' centered in stark white paint on his forehead above the holes for his eyes. He smiles, making something hungry twist low in the asset's gut, leans against the door frame for a few seconds, and crosses his arms over his chest. "Thank God. Are you okay?"

The asset doesn't know how to answer that, can't focus on the question because the captain is fumbling with the chinstrap of his helmet as he steps into the bathroom. He works the snap free and ducks his head as he pulls it off; the asset's eyes catch on the captain's gloves, fingerless just past the second knuckle, and his hair, short and messy and blond, damp with sweat. The asset wants to bury his metal fingers in it and push the captain's head back, wants to cut his teeth on the man's sharp jawline.

"I. . ." he starts, stops. Swallows hard with emotion rising in his throat and threatening to choke him. He can't remember what he needs to say, how he is supposed to respond. His knees feel very weak. "Sir?"

The captain stops in front of him. "What's wrong?" he asks, and the asset knows what he is about to say before it ever passes his lips. He knows that painful, punishing look and the way the captain's back straightens, the way the weight of worry settles tensely throughout his body. He knows every line that appears along the captain's pale skin, and the way his brows climb and his mouth purses a little before the words come out. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."

A desperate, needy sound he can't help escapes him at the order, and he tries to answer as best he can. He gives his post-action report: "I. . . Sir, I received minor burn damage to my face, hands, and respiratory system during the attack. The doctors saw me and treated those injuries. I had a broken nose and a cracked rib, and they are healing according to the usual parameters." He pauses, uncertain. The captain is watching him with that wet, awful look again, like the asset is doing something wrong. Like he is disappointed the asset is botching an inspection. "I-I am no longer malfunctioning, and I was told that Sergeant Wilson is out of surgery. I. . . Is he. . .?"

"Yeah," the captain says, but his voice has gone tight and strained. It tears into the asset like a wound, gaping and raw, when he agrees, "Yeah, Bucky, Sam's gonna be fine."

The captain sets his helmet on the counter. The asset hits his knees.

He feels his hands come up, lifted as though of their own accord to rest on the captain's waist and belt, fingers curling around the brown leather. His boot gaiters and harness straps are the same color, same material. The inside of the shield on his back is a silver arch where it peeks up over the strong, broad expanse of his shoulders. It reminds the asset of the saintly haloes in a church he has never been to and refuses to leave. He closes his eyes and lets himself lean forward to rest his forehead against the patterned armor over the captain's stomach. The captain inhales sharply and stills, then lets it out in a deep, controlled exhale as he puts a hand in the asset's hair, strokes through the dirty strands slow and careful. He never seems to get caught in the tangles. It feels good, so good, and the asset had almost forgotten how good the captain makes him feel. He's not sure what he did to deserve it.

"Are you hurt?" the captain asks. A hand rests at the back of the asset's head and holds him there, cupping his skull like it is something fragile when they both know that it is not. The captain is warm and safe and no one is screaming and nothing hurts except all the dark places inside that _do_.

The asset chokes on a breath that feels like punishment, presses his face into the captain's stomach and pulls him closer. The kevlar is rough against his nose and cheek when he turns his head, nuzzling at the stitching on top and the contours he knows are hidden underneath. There is a bullet wound here, beneath the armor, low on the captain's waist just a little to the right of his navel. The asset knows this; he remembers shooting him on the helicarrier and letting him get shot in Lyon, and gut wounds have always shown up so well on this stupid, flashy uniform. He forgets how to breathe for a moment, his lungs and heart and that awful sickness in his code trying to claw their way out of his chest.

"You told me not to hurt anyone," he whispers, hoarse, tries to explain. His voice breaks when he says, "But I did," wavers and goes weak on, "I had to, sir, _I had to_."

"You. . . you think I'm going to hurt you," the captain says with dawning horror, more to himself than to the asset. He withdraws one of his gloved hands to place over his mouth like he's going to be sick. It muffles his next words. "No. Oh, _God no_. I'm not gonna. . . Bucky." The asset can feel himself trembling, tightens his grip as the captain's fingers slide to his chin, forcing his face up so that he cannot hide against the uniform any longer. "I'm not going to punish you for protecting —"

"But I didn't," he says, and isn't quite sure why he's arguing except that the captain is wrong when he should be right. He stares over the captain's shoulder at the doorframe behind him. "Sergeant Wilson got shot and Miss Potts got upset, and you told me not to."

"Look at me," the captain orders, and the asset complies. "I'm not your handler, remember? And I am not going to punish you. Not for this, and not for what they made you do as the Winter Soldier. Okay?"

That is —

Specific. Very specific. _Too_ specific.

"What about. . ." the asset begins haltingly, licks his lips and meets the captain's gaze. "Sir? What about when I'm not the Winter Soldier? What about what I do when I'm just Bucky Barnes?"

The captain's eyes are dark and his jaw is set with righteous fury. His fingers tighten on the asset's face, a momentary, involuntary squeeze like he is considering splintering bones, and then consciously relaxes. Everything is measured and even and so very careful when he asks, "When did I hurt you, Bucky? What did I do?"

"You. . ." And that's the part that doesn't make sense. Because Captain America is his favorite, and he is the captain's favorite, and Captain America didn't beat him. Didn't shoot him or pour acid on him or make him swallow poison. Didn't burn him or whip him or stab him. He has never crawled through barbed wire or shattered glass for him, never dragged himself across the floor with broken bones on his orders. Captain America never forced a taser between his teeth. His captain has never enjoyed punishing him the way other commanders did. "You used to —"

 _(he's sitting on something low with fingers in his hair and Steve Rogers' voice in his ear from behind, something sharp in one hand as he pushes Bucky's head forward with the other)_

 _(and the water is cold, the officer's hand in his hair gripping tight to hold him under, the garrote around the asset's neck biting into skin and)_

". . . You used to cut me?" It's a question, because it's all jumbled up in his memory now. Steve Rogers leaning in, close enough for the asset to feel the warmth radiating off a narrow chest but not quite making contact and the captain squeezing his shoulder, grounding him, trying to bring him back from getting lost out in the snow while strapped to a table. Both mouths moving but the asset doesn't hear what either says, just the soft whisper from memory —

 _("I thought you were dead")_

 _("Don't squirm, Buck, you're gonna make it worse")_

" _No_ ," the captain answers emphatically, shaking his head. "I used to cut your hair, in the field, when it got too long. And, and back in Brooklyn, because we were cheap and I had steady hands. Do you remember?"

He doesn't, not really, but it makes more sense than the idea that his captain wants to hurt him. The asset nods anyway, says it to agree in the hopes that it will help cement the surrounding circumstances in his memory for next time. "You used to cut my hair."

"That's right."

"But you didn't cut me."

"No, Bucky, I would never." The captain pauses, stroking gently over the asset's bandages with gentle thumbs. The pressure is soft, a kindness he can't possibly deserve and doesn't know how to earn. Like the asset is good. Important. Like he matters at all. "Come on, you know me. I wouldn't do that."

And the strangest thing is that he does. He has always known. He knows this man like he knows so much; out of context, out of place, out of time.

If the asset is a rifle, then Captain America must be a mountain, he thinks, because the captain is steady and strong and present, always. He is key terrain, high ground to be taken and defended. He is breathtaking and beautiful and larger than life or death or even fear. So many of the asset's memories are here, smashed against the captain's topography, the dizzying elevation lines of his body's landscape. His legs are cliff sides, and he has ridges and saddles for ribs, abdominals like draws running downslope, hip bones jutting like spurs beneath his skin. The wounds the asset leaves in his wake are cuts and depressions, scarred ruins on an otherwise perfect region.

The asset leans forward again, his mouth ghosting over an injury's memory, his lips sticking to the new material. It is dry and unmarked, no bullet holes or blood stains. He can't feel the captain through the uniform, can't smell or taste the smooth skin on his tongue when his mouth opens and his teeth scrape the red and white with a strangled whimper. One of his hands drops from the captain's belt, slides along the heavy fabric of his pants and past his holster to the back of his thigh, just under the swell of his ass. The asset shot him here, too, he thinks, fingers curling inward toward the seam. It must surprise the captain, because he startles, jumping just a little before he catches himself from jerking forward.

"Bucky?" he says, and it is an azimuth. The asset has been lost in the cold and the snow, in the river that refuses to freeze at the bottom of this ravine, for a long time. Ever since he fell, and it was such a long drop off the mountain, but this, he thinks, is all he needs. These are features that he knows, drawn here on the captain as hills and valleys and plateaus of muscle and bone, his not-name and the captain's voice known points that intersect. Without the armor, the unfamiliar uniform that is trying so hard to be what it is not, he could find his way home again.

The captain's body is a map, and its legend is carved so deep inside the asset that even Hydra cannot tear it out.

"I do. I-I know. . . I know you," he says, tilts his head back up. When the asset falls, he will look up and see these blue eyes in a grey sky, will hear the train rattle along tracks that curve around and through the memory of this man. His own eyes are wet and hungry as he drinks in the captain's soft, pained smile. "I've known you my whole life."

Someone told him that. It feels like it might be true, might be real in ways that he is not, but he knows that it isn't, because even though the Smithsonian exhibit said they made Captain America in a laboratory in 1943, he knows that men are not made. They are not metal, not built as part of a project. Men are not dissembled for their components, not supplanted piece by piece until they are shiny and new and pretending to be whole again. The asset is a tool, just another resource in Hydra's vast arsenal to build order out of chaos, to shape the glory of a nation, to bring peace to a world perpetuated by war, but Captain America is so much _more_ than that.

The captain looks at him with desperate hope, with something fragile and easily broken held out between them like a hand just out of reach as the metal gives way. "You remember?" he asks, and the asset knows that he has to find something that will suffice as an answer, because he will hurt the captain otherwise. He always does, even when he doesn't mean to. He is wrapped in barbed wire, rusted and concealed beneath the layers of lies and corrupted programming.

"You. . . You used to be. . ." It's there on the tip of his tongue, clumsy recognition flickering in black and white, frame by frame, like the picture shows he used to go to. There is a theater, and a back lot, and too many bloody alleyways to count. He grabs at it, guessing wildly, and says, begging for it to be correct, "Smaller?"

The captain makes an awful, heartrending sound, exhales like it has been beaten from him. His shoulders shake. His eyes squeeze shut, teeth clenched together to hold in another punishment. The asset tightens his grip on his belt and thigh.

"What happened?" the asset asks, because that's what comes next, he's sure of it. He's said this before, at some point. The captain's body curls over him, fingers in the asset's hair, skating over his temple and one ear as he pulls the asset's head in close again. He doesn't understand what he did wrong. This isn't fair. The captain's belt is a painful pressure against his throat. His voice trembles, breaks on the next question, "Did it hurt?"

As soon as he says it, he knows what happened. Captain America joined the Army. He was promoted. There was an upgrade. That's how these things work. The asset received an upgrade, too; he got on a train and the Army promoted him to sergeant and gave him a rifle, and then they strapped him to a table and gave him a metal arm. Of course it hurt, he thinks. It always hurts.

"Is it —?"

"Permanent?" the captain interrupts, supplies the rest with that aching, unending grief of his. It wasn't the word the asset had been going to use, not the question he cares about getting answered. He had been going to ask if it was his fault, which it probably was, because the captain is good and good men don't need to be sent away. It feels like dying but _so much worse_ when he says, "Yeah. Yeah, so far, Buck."


End file.
